Tribute

Don't believe everything you hear - or don't hear - from the chattering classes.

Bruce Springsteen, truthteller and diehard John Kerry supporter, gave a free 2 1/2 hour concert yesterday morning at Rockefeller Plaza. I wasn't there, but caught some of the video . It was positively surreal to note that Tim Russert, one of the chattering class upon whose heads sits at least partial responsibility for the interminable and catastrophic presidency of George Bush, was in the front row. I wonder what Bruce thought about his presence there.

In any case, Springsteen, like many of us, still has the bitter 2004 election in his blood. "Last To Die, from his new album "Magic" refers to John Kerry's 1971 testimony in its chorus:

Who'll be the last to die for our mistake
The last to die for our mistake
Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break
Who'll be the last to die for our mistake?

I believe that the country is - at a painfully glacial pace - coming to realize not just how truly horrible George Bush turned out to be, but also what it lost when Kerry did not become president. Check out this beautiful tribute titled Honoring Excellence, written by mbk and posted over at John Kerry is My Hero.

...In the Massachusetts tourist town where I work for much of the summer, I was startled to realize one early August afternoon the number of cars who still have “Kerry for president” and “Kerry/Edwards” stickers on their cars. My count of parked cars on my 1-block Friday afternoon stroll : John Kerry stickers (3: 2 from MA, 1 from Connecticut); Kerry/Edwards (4: 3 from MA, 1 from North Carolina). Some of these were a little faded, but none had been damaged. In all but one case, the Kerry or Kerry/Edwards sticker was the only bumper sticker on the car, and they clearly were quite deliberately preserved. I saw no stickers that afternoon for 08 candidates, no stickers for Bush. So here’s my question: did stickers persist this long after earlier elections? Do those persistent stickers mean that at least some people out there know exactly what we lost? I hope the answer is yes.

I too hope the answer is yes. In the spirit of honoring excellence I hope you will continue to pay attention to the work John Kerry is doing every day from his spot in the legislative quagmire that is the U.S. Senate. And as for Springsteen, there will be an article about him in Sunday's New York Times that is already online. This is what integrity looks like.