John Kerry has been using the supposedly tragic plight of Lori Sheldon, a Pennsylvania mother of two daughters, to show us all how heartless and cruel the Bush administration has been to working families. Get out your hankies. Not.

The New York Times reports:

Ms. Sheldon took her husband, John, a ground crewman at the Pittsburgh airport, and their two daughters to a Kerry front-porch event on Labor Day near their home in Canonsburg, Pa. When she heard him describe the effects on families of lost jobs and rising costs, Ms. Sheldon rose from her seat.

“You just told our story,” she said, pointing to her 11- and 16-year-old girls. “I’m tired of saying no to them. We say no all the time…”

Actually, most parents, myself included, don’t say no to our kids nearly enough.
But I digress. After her husband lost his job, Mrs. Sheldon said:

I told the kids, “Don’t worry, Dad’s not going to let us starve..”

Well, what exactly is Mrs. Sheldon being forced to deny her children? Food? Shoes? Blankets? Transportation? (In Milwaukee, Kerry cited Sheldon to illustrate that “as I travel across this country, I meet women like Lori every single day. Women squeezed between rising costs and sinking wages who tell me, health care’s so expensive, they just can’t afford it…gas costs so much, they empty their wallets just to fill their tanks.”)

Lori Sheldon, however, didn’t tell the Times she is giving up basic things like gas:

Ms. Sheldon has laid down the law about Christmas already – no presents for adults – but, she said, she is still having to say no to her girls. “This is Halloween, and they like to go to haunted houses,” she said, but each one costs $12 or more. “They just went this weekend, and were already talking about another one,” she said. “I’m like, ‘You had your thrill. Once was enough.’ “

This is supposed to be, like, a national tragedy?! Mrs. Sheldon’s children can’t go to another overpriced haunted house and now John Kerry has christened her the 21st century Ma Joad?

“I’m not embarrassed, I’m frustrated,” she said. “It’s a bad situation, don’t you think?”

Nor nearly as bad as the sob-story-telling/women-vote-groveling Kerry campaign is making it out to be.