On Fox News's "The Five" last week, the panel had some fun coming up with alternative songs and performers U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry could have employed in his visit to France last week.
The video which follows starts with Greg Gutfeld exposing how the song used — "You've Got a Friend" as delivered by James Taylor, who was having a hard time even keeping his microphone properly positioned — actually served to expose the Obama administration's kiss-and-make-up hypocrisy. When they got around to song ideas, Bob Beckel, the panel's resident hardened liberal, was less than pleased, exposed his ignorance of France's foreign policy positions, and even contended that "there shouldn't have been a rally (in Paris) in the first place." At clip's end, Andrea Tantaros came up with the best song suggestion, which, sadly, could properly be applied to the person delivering tonight's State of the Union speech.
Transcript (lengthy, but entertaining):
GREG GUTFELD: As if the French haven't been through enough, John Kerry showed up a week later and he brought gifts -- if by "gifts" you mean "pain."
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAMES TAYLOR, SINGER (singing): If you're down and troubled and you need some lovin' care. And nothing, oh nothing is going right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: James Taylor? And we hammered Dick Cheney over waterboarding? I'd confess to creating Ebola just to make that crap stop.
Well at least Kerry didn't look stupid just standing there.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, with Kerry looking stupid standing there)
TAYLOR (singing): Now ain't it great to know you've got a friend when people can be so cold. They'll hurt ya, yes and desert ya. They'll take your soul if you let them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: I don't know what to say. That's intimidating. It got crazy afterward when they all made smores.
Now I'd say Kerry made a fool of himself, but that suggests a temporary condition. But what he did do reflects a 1960s ideology that fights force with feelings.
So what does the President think of this response to the Paris attacks? Let's ask the commander in chief.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
VALERIE JARETT, SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Certainly we would have liked to have participated in the parade. I'd remind you that Attorney General Holder was in Paris for a very important meeting together with his colleagues from around Europe and around the world to take a look at what we can do to make sure that we're cooperating fully. And so, I think we certainly got the substance right. But, they would have been -- it would have been great to participate in the parade, and we're delighted that Secretary Kerry is there now.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: Mm-hmm. Not bad, 44.
But Kerry should have called me first. I have better suggestions than a wimpy warbler. Maybe "These Colors Don't Run" by Iron Maiden, huh? Or side one of Slayer's "Reign in Blood"? That's scary.
Because here's the unintended joke of Taylor's lyrics -- let me quote them. "Just call out my name and you know wherever I am, I'll come running." No, no, no. That should be, "Just call out my name and you know wherever I am, I'll come running -- in a week or so."
So America, once a great country run by great men, is now a divided collective run by camp counselors. Worse, it's a camp counselor proud of his famous friends. Instead of a show of force, we got show business, because, you know, they're like buds.
But in my opinion, there is only one response to this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ANIMAL HOUSE")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (singing): I gave my love a story that had no end. I give --
(GUITAR DESTROYED)
JOHN BELUSHI AS "JOHN BLUTARSKY": Sorry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GUTFELD: All right. Dana -- I gonna run the table ask people what song they should have picked. But, first I ask -- Dana, I know it's kind of petty to go off on this but, they make it easy, because this is embarrassing.
DANA PERINO: It reminded me of another time where John Kerry made a decision that was symbolic and it defined an entire -- campaign. And it was in the summer of 2004, we have a picture there. Remember of President Bush is out chopping brush in Texas and John Kerry was windsurfing. It was great, a flip-flop story.
I think a better gift would have been to hand over to the French the coordinates of the --
GUTFELD: Ooh.
PERINO: Yemen training camp where the terrorists trained.
GUTFELD: Would -- could --
PERINO: So that they could have destroyed it. That would have been a good gift.
GUTFELD: Could the song have been in a code? The coordinates for bombing was in the song?
BOLLING: Play it backwards.
GUTFELD: Play it backwards?
(LAUGHTER)
GUTFELD: That probably sounds great backwards. It's like Judas Priest --
(CROSSTALK)
... PERINO: I have a song. I have -- I came up with a good one.
GUTFELD: What?
PERINO: Elton John's "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word."
GUTFELD: Oh, that's nice. That's good.
(CROSSTALK, LAUGHTER)
ELTON JOHN (SINGING): What do I say when it's all over?
TANTAROS: I like that.
GUTFELD: So what are we gonna do? We gonna play --
(CROSSTALK)
TANTAROS: And I'll just — Anyone got a lighter?
ERIC BOLLING: First of all, can I say that was your best monologue I think that I've ever heard? Awesome, perfect nailed everything. ISIS must be hilariously laughing at us right now. Like, really, James Taylor? That's what you gonna do? That's we are gonna be afraid of? Oooh. There is some leadership for you. So I was thinking what the right song, artist would have been, he's dead unfortunately. Instead of James Taylor, maybe some James Hendrix, a little "Star Spangled Banner."
GUTFELD: Yeah.
BOLLING: They play of -- the flag represents freedom --
PERINO: In France?
BOLLING: Yeah, yeah,
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: That might have been the worst --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: All right, fine. Did, though -- don't point it to France, point it to ISIS, and then -- how about this one? Cee-Lo Green -- only not the clean version.
GUTFELD: Oh, yes.
CEE-LO GREEN, SINGER: Although there's a pain in my chest, I still wish you the best with a, forget you.
BOLLING: Not "Forget you," the real version that -- send that one over to ISIS.
GUTFELD: Bob, uh -- It was the thought that counts, right? They were -- they were trying to actually apologize to -- I'm trying to be nice here -- to apologize to France, make a connection.
BECKEL: That was among the worst monologues I have ever heard you give.
GUTFELD: Why?
BECKEL: Because it is so vacuous, it is so -- I mean, people are dying every day.
GUTFELD: Yes.
BECKEL: And we are talking about James Taylor. Now --
GUTFELD: We didn't send James Taylor over there, Bob! Don't say that to me. I know -- I've been talking about this for five years.
BECKEL: OK. I -- How about "Fire and Rain"? I think that's a good one. Remember, it was the French who refused to allow Ronald Reagan to send planes over to bomb Libya. The French have been wusses throughout all this. They have not been willing to do anything, now they got an aircraft carrier. I think the coordinates are a good idea. Let's see them put a plane in the air and bomb.
TANTAROS: Wait. So you're saying this is revenge?
BOLLING: Bob, they have -- they have airplanes. They're a part of coalition bombing ISIS --
BECKEL: They -- I thought. They are not! They are not!
BOLLING: You are going to tell me French aren't bombing ISIS? That they didn't just re-up two days ago, saying they're gonna continue to bomb ISIS.
BECKEL: Yeah, would you not? --
BOLLING: I tell you what, here is the Washington Post, maybe -- We'll just take a look at that. (Link here [New York Daily News]: "French Parliament votes nearly unanimously to continue anti-ISIS strikes in Iraq." Beckel was wrong. — Ed.)
(CROSSTALK)
BECKEL: I'll be happy to take a look at it.
PERINO: Andrea.
GUTFELD: Andrea.
TANTAROS: Yes.
GUTFELD: Granted, I am the first to admit, this is red meat for people like me. But, if they make it this easy -- at least it wasn't Cat Stevens. What are your thoughts and your choice?
TANTAROS: That's what we are going with? At least it wasn't Yusuf Islam? We didn't send him over there? Isn't that his new name?
GUTFELD: Yes.
TANTAROS: So they give us the Statue of Liberty.
BECKEL: Uh-hum.
TANTAROS: And we give them the statue, John Kerry, whose face didn't move, although his eyes were closed. And James Taylor? And "You've Got a Friend"? Wait, President Obama stood in front of the U.N. and wagged his fingers at Charlie Hebdo and blamed them, and had Jay Carney do the same thing so, we're actually not being a very good friend to the French.
BECKEL: When did he do that?
TANTAROS: In 2009.
GUTFELD: Yeah, at the fire bomb, right?
TANTAROS: So -- it was very embarrassing. I actually don't think we should have sent anyone to give a song. What song? No song. It's not a Broadway musical.
GUTFELD: Yeah.
TANTAROS: You don't send a mix tape after people get slaughtered in the street.
BECKEL: I -- think you're right about that. Same reason that --
TANTAROS: However --
BECKEL: there shouldn't have been a rally in the first place, a bunch of --
(CROSSTALK)
BOLLING: They had a rally. But they had a rally.
TANTAROS: You asked me to give a song.
BOLLING: We didn't show up.
TANTAROS: I got a song.
GUTFELD: What?
TANTAROS: "Send in the Clowns" by Judy Collins.
GUTFELD: Oh, what a great song.
JUDY COLLINS, SINGER: "Where are the clowns?"
GUTFELD: There you go.
TANTAROS: There's got to be --
BECKEL: I cannot believe we wasted an entire segment on a James Taylor song.
(LAUGHTER)
Based on their pathetic recovery attempts in France during the past week, what Judy Collins (and Frank Sinatra) sang about the clowns could be applied to the White House: "Don't bother, they're here."
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
