Kerry camp on the defensive after celebrities bash Bush

NEW YORK -- John F. Kerry and John Edwards boasted yesterday about the positive tone of their presidential campaign hours after celebrities at one of their fund-raisers unleashed a stream of invective against President Bush that sparked outrage from Republicans and calls by Bush supporters for Kerry to make public a tape of the event.

Comedian Whoopi Goldberg's monologue Thursday night included a sexual pun on Bush's name. Other performers on the stage at Radio City Music Hall called Bush a "thug," and others accused him of leading the nation to war for political gain.

A crowd of more than 6,000 people, who donated an estimated $7.5 million to the Kerry-Edwards campaign and the Democratic National Committee, responded with a mixture of laughter and incredulity.

"Someone was waging war in the name of Bush. Someone misled the country in the name of Bush. Someone attempted to amend the Constitution in the name of Bush," said Goldberg, in part of her monologue as she swung an unopened bottle of wine.

John Mellencamp, in a song titled "Texas Bandito," said Bush was "another cheap thug who sacrifices our young." Actress Jessica Lange said, "Are we going to continue to follow a self-serving regime of deceit, hypocrisy, and belligerence?" And comedian Chevy Chase poked at Bush's pronunciation of "nuclear" and "terrorist," before accusing him of going to war in Iraq "just so he could be called a wartime president." He also said Bush "is as bright as an egg timer."

Monitors showed Kerry, the presumed Democratic presidential nominee, laughing through much of the concert. Afterward, he told the audience that the performers "conveyed the heart and soul of our country." His only quibble was with Goldberg's repeated references to Edwards as "Kid." Kerry said his 51-year-old running mate, who is nine years his junior, is "a man."

Yesterday, Kerry touted his campaign's positive cast, telling a crowd at another fund-raiser, "John and I didn't run one negative ad against each other or any of our opponents all through the primaries and we haven't done a negative ad against George Bush, because we think Americans want real solutions for real problems."

The Radio City event prompted a sharp rebuke from the Bush-Cheney reelection committee, which noted that Kerry attended the concert despite saying earlier on CNN's "Larry King Live" that he had not had enough time to get an intelligence briefing. The administration warned Thursday of Al Qaeda plans to attack the United States and offered to brief Kerry. Kerry's campaign said he has scheduled the briefing for Sunday.

"It is a great example of John Kerry's priorities that on the day he said he did not have time to receive his intelligence briefing on threats to America, he found time to attend a Hollywood fund-raiser, filled with enough hate and vitriol to make Michael Moore blush," Bush-Cheney campaign spokesman Steve Schmidt said.

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, also protested, citing Kerry's upcoming campaign stops. "I look forward to today, when Senator Kerry tells the people of West Virginia and New Mexico that he sees hate and vitriol as America's heart and soul," Gillespie said. "I doubt anyone will be celebrating."

The Kerry campaign's response evolved as the day went on -- from refusing to criticize the remarks to distancing the candidate from them.

"There's a difference between our campaign and what others say," communications director Stephanie Cutter said yesterday morning. "Our campaign is fighting to make America strong. What others say is up to them."

Another spokesman, David Wade, recalled Vice President Cheney's recent use of an expletive when speaking with Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, on the Senate floor. "Newspapers all over the country struggled to find a way to print what the vice president said and couldn't do it," Wade said.

Later, during a conference call with reporters, Tad Devine, a top Kerry communications strategist, grew animated when asked whether the campaign would release a tape of the event, as the Bush-Cheney committee requested. Doing so might violate copyrights and licensing agreements for the entertainers who performed -- and allow the Bush campaign to use the tape in commercials against Kerry and Edwards, a campaign aide said.

"The hypocrisy of them making a call like that is almost unimaginable," said Devine, adding that Bush and Cheney restrict access to their own campaign events. (In fact, the administration's practice is to let reporters into all fund-raisers except those in private residences. While reporters were invited to the Kerry concert, they were forbidden from recording.)

Still, during that conference call, campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill said of Kerry, "He does not approve of some of the remarks that were made last night, and he has made that clear." When asked how he had done so, because Kerry had not commented on the speechmaking, she said, "He has made clear what he thinks American values are."

While the candidate did not directly address the issue, his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, told reporters traveling aboard the campaign charter that "some of the words were ones I would not have used."

The back-and-forth came on yet another day when the administration and its challengers exchanged volleys over who best speaks to the values of American voters. It also followed a pattern in which the Kerry campaign has allowed supporters to level attacks at the administration while maintaining an ability to deny direct involvement. Throughout the year, organizations such as MoveOn.org and The Media Fund have targeted Bush with critical ads that dovetail with the critique Kerry has delivered on the campaign trail. But these groups typically have been much harsher in their attacks than the Kerry campaign has been.

The Radio City concert was organized by Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner and Miramax Pictures cofounder Harvey Weinstein, who sat beside Kerry inside the hall most famous as home to the Rockettes.

Among the performers were singers Jon Bon Jovi, Wyclef Jean, Mary J. Blige, and the Dave Matthews Band.

The music was interspersed with speeches by performers such as actress Sarah Jessica Parker. The "Sex and the City" star said, "This year, a vote for John Kerry and John Edwards is a real patriot act."

Another speaker, actress Meryl Streep, criticized Bush's frequent invocation of religion and said, "I wondered to myself through the shock and awe, I wondered which of the megaton bombs Jesus, our president's personal savior, would have personally dropped on the sleeping families in Baghdad."

Yesterday morning, Kerry, Edwards, and their wives attended a fund-raiser on a pier overlooking the Hudson River. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady, introduced the families to the more than 3,000 people in attendance, saying: "The future of our country and our world is literally at stake. I cannot even imagine four more years." Ticking through a critique of the administration's policies, the Democrat added: "What else is there to say; this is a failed presidency that needs to be retired to Crawford, Texas."

Later in the day, the two couples flew to Beaver, W.Va., and Albuquerque for a pair of rallies. Today they return to Raleigh, N.C., for a "homecoming rally."

Glen Johnson can be reached at johnson@globe.com.