Diary – 6 August 2004

Las Vegas

Whatever else we import from American politics, please let us avoid the appalling new practice of requiring children to give testimonials on behalf of their parents. I was sitting with my 11-year-old daughter in our VIP suite in Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, waiting for John Kerry to come on CNN, when my blood ran cold. Not one but two Kerry daughters were produced to give speeches in praise of Kerry the loving Pop. This is America, of course, where top politics has Hollywood production values, and both speeches were impeccably charming. One of the girls, Alexandra, told of the time when the Kerry hamster fell, in its cage, off a New England dock, and the weeping Kerry children watched it bubble to the depths. It was a reverse Chappaquidick, with the hamster as Mary Jo Kopechne, and Kerry an anti-Teddy Kennedy, hurling himself after the trapped critter. The tale will have done him no end of good.