Kerry’s celery shtick reveals more than his inner toddler
By Beth Teitell
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
He may have flip-flopped on certain political issues, but there’s one thing Sen. John Kerry is rock-solid against: celery. But don’t tell anyone, it’s confidential.
The top-secret info was included on the ‘‘tour rider” provided to hotels where Kerry stayed during his presidential campaign and recently came to light on the Smoking Gun Web site.
As if we needed more proof that the junior senator lacks the common touch. He spends the whole election trying to prove he’s a regular guy, you know, windsurfing off Nantucket like we all do, and he hushes up a distaste for a vegetable that not only has very high negatives, but that his own wife apparently loves?
Forget the Vietnam veteran stuff. How red-state-manly would it have been to dis a green vegetable and the little woman in one blow? The tour rider also revealed that Kerry shuns all tomatoes and tomato-based products (except tomato-based fortunes, I guess).
As you’d expect, Kerry’s tour rider was duller than Teresa’s. Not only does she want celery and tomatoes, she requires a reverse osmosis filter. Whatever the heck that is. Perhaps if Ohio voters had known about the first lady wannabe’s osmotic reversals, the state might have gone for Kerry. Or not. Even the campaign staff seemed to recognize the ROF was a bit out of the mainstream. ‘‘May have to carry with us,” an aide’s note read.
You think? I called a fancy hotel in Boston, the Fairmont Copley Plaza, and asked if they used such a filter or had them. ‘‘I’m not” - long pause - ‘‘sure about that,” said a very polite woman at the front desk. She transferred me to ‘‘engineering,” where an answer was procured: no.
By the way, according to ‘The Detox Book,” reverse osmosis filters do remove almost all lead from water but waste ‘‘quite a bit,” requiring about 5 gallons to produce 1 drinkable gallon. How’s that for environmentally friendly?
The Smoking Gun published Kerry’s tour rider in an attempt at bipartisanship, having published Vice President Dick Cheney’s last week. You’ll recall the Veep likes caffeine-free diet Sprite, and all the lights must be on before he gets to his room. Although Kerry and his wife were ‘‘more demanding than Dick,” according to Smoking Gun, neither man made outrageous requests. But even so, the very fact that they have tour riders shows them to be, like rock stars, essentially toddlers, ready to throw a fit if they don’t get what they want when they want. ‘‘I specifically requested NO citrus fruits, people! Am I talking to hear myself speak?”
In fact, if there were any surprises on the riders, it’s that juice boxes and animal crackers weren’t requested.
