Hey, it's been nice having y'all here in the Commonwealth, God save it. Can y'all please go home now?
It's not that we mind having people wandering through Old North Church wearing sequined donkeys on their heads. We enjoy it. We encourage it. We teach it in our schools. Just ask Joe Scarborough, who wonders how Teresa Heinz Kerry will play in Peoria among stay-at-home moms, as though he could find the place and gives a genuine damn about the moms. Here's a hint, Squint: Don't mess with THK. She can buy your network and sell it (and you) for spare parts.
That's what I'm here to tell you. We love you delegates. You've all been great. We liked explaining to you that the South End is west of South Boston, and that the North End is next to East Boston and also just next door to what used to be the West End. We liked watching you wander off afterward and wind up in Cambridge anyway. It was really sweet the way you'd run up and touch the Green Monster at Fenway Park, thereby dooming yourselves to 85 years of bad luck. We really enjoyed helping you figure out the T, and your relatives can send your Christmas cards to “GENERAL DELIVERY -- HAYMARKET STATION” if you're still here riding around.
But, alas, we have to ask you to leave, because, if you do, the rest of them will go as well. Celebrities. Pundits. Pundit celebrities. Celebrity pundits. All of them. They came here the way that the English sparrow and the chestnut blight came: hiding within otherwise perfectly wonderful life-forms.
You're having a good time. We're having a good time. And, the next thing you know, Chris Matthews is hanging around Faneuil Hall marketplace like the unholy spawn of old Joe Kennedy and June Cleaver. You can't get away from the guy. If he's going to spend that much time there, at least he could've learned how to juggle or something.
They brought their obsessions with them. Who is this Hillary person, anyway, and why is Matthews so obsessed about her? I mean, we worked really hard to put this event together, and does he care? All he wants to do is talk about this Hillary person. Lord Almighty, if she had a bunny, I think he'd be boiling it by now. And, for all you folks who insisted on talking about the 2008 presidential campaign in July of 2004, well, just be glad we don't have the stocks set up on the Common anymore.
(I would point out that, only a few blocks away from the Hardball set, is the spot on which the Boston Massacre took place. I would also point out that The Capital Gang was live from here all week. It is this that requires me, finally, to point out that there are never any Redcoats around when you need them. Damned Adams boys.)
And nobody briefed them. Nobody told them that referring to “the Curse of the Bambino” as regards the local baseball nine marks you immediately as a geek. Or Ben Affleck. But I repeat myself. Nobody told them to avoid the cute way we talk. Ann Coulter got fired, and nobody sold me a ticket and some popcorn. In so many ways, none of us was ready for this.
There were fascinating moments, too, I must admit. It was very interesting to watch Michael Moore meet Ted Sorensen outside the Fleet Center on Monday night. Two rather, ah, distinct approaches to political rhetoric. “Let the word go forth … that the torch has been passed,” to a man driving an ice-cream truck around Capitol Hill. After they'd gone their separate ways, I stood around with a noted editor of an independent journal of liberal thought, and we described some of our more famous colleagues in terms that, in other circumstances, might have brought us the attention of the FCC.
(And, no, I don't believe what my friend said about Bob Novak. I have too much respect for the discretion of American livestock.)
And there was George Stephanopoulos, riding the escalator down with Richard Schiff, who plays gloomy-Gus liberal Toby Ziegler on The West Wing. I mentioned that Schiff plays, essentially, one-third of George Stephanopoulos, and that this was a fine postmodern moment. But a senior fellow -- there were more senior fellows in town than you could shake a stick at, but I shook a stick at them anyway -- later told me over dinner that, on the show, Stephanopoulos was played by equal parts Rob Lowe and Bradley Whitford. Lowe, of course, went on, as they say around the Hollywood boneyard, “to pursue other opportunities” -- which, in his case, meant The Lyon's Den, a legal thriller that lasted less time than the Democratic Party gave Howard Dean on Tuesday night. So, if you're keeping score at home: Half of George Stephanopoulos was canceled last winter. I think he should see a doctor.
Seriously, though, you should all come back. Preferably in small groups. Maybe one or two at a time. We'd love to see you again. Just try to stay undercover until you cross the border, and check the rearview at all times for minicams, boom microphones, supporting actors, and senior fellows. If you see them, turn back immediately and leave us here in the Commonwealth, God save it, to go back to what we do best: cost overruns and cursing the Red Sox, now with the new cheer you all taught us: “Barack me, baby, like my back ain't got no bone!”
Thank you all for coming. Drive safe, now.
Charles P. Pierce is a staff writer for The Boston Globe Magazine and a contributing writer for Esquire. He also appears regularly on National Public Radio.
