SOUTH BURLINGTON — A roast intended to heckle John McClaughry, co-founder of the Ethan Allen Institute, blistered just about everyone but the guest of honor.
In fact, at the 20th anniversary dinner of the Ethan Allen Institute in South Burlington on Wednesday, the esteemed critic of Vermont politics said it was an honor to be the butt of everyone’s jokes.
“It’s an honor to have been roasted tonight by the most fiscally conservative governor of my 50 years in public life: Tom Salmon,” he said.
Salmon, a former Democratic governor, questioned why he was invited to the event because John McClaughry was one of his fiercest critics.
“Back in 1972, I somehow managed to get myself elected governor. John McClaughry would emerge as my most vocal and persistent critic,” Salmon said. “Simply stated, he kicked my butt.”
However, he answered the mystery by taking the first jab at McClaughry.
“Only one thought came to mind, initially, and that is, well, I greatly admire his wife, Anne,” he said.
Salmon said he had evolved into a fiscal conservative over the years, joining sides with McClaughry.
Salmon says he agrees with McClaughry’s stance on Vermont’s health care program, for example, is fiscally irresponsible, dangerously misunderstood and out-of-line with free-market principles.
“What do I say to these public policy commentaries?” Salmon asked. “I say this: I fully concur.”
McClaughry, the state’s foremost conservative political critic, then took the opportunity to roast everyone else.
At the beginning of his speech, he held up two three-ring binders, or “loose-leaf volumes,” that contained evidence of former governors’ mistakes made while in office.
“Incidentally, I’m still getting to the volume labeled ‘Some Mistakes of Peter Shumlin,’” McClaughry said. “Though he has only been governor for three years, the notebook is already three or four times as thick as the total of the two volumes brought with me tonight.”
He ridiculed Gov. Peter Shumlin’s controversial land purchase from his neighbor, Jeremy Dodge.
“The section on buying property in East Montpelier is already four-inches thick,” McClaughry said.
The event was designed to be fun while honoring the organization’s 20 years of focus on free-market policies, according to Rob Roper, president of the Ethan Allen Institute.
Roper sent invitations to all the state legislators and other state leaders, including Shumlin. He said the governor probably decided not to attend because he is not a free-market-kind of politician, a principle upon which the Ethan Allen Institute was founded.
Actor and comedian Rusty Dewees, also know as “The Logger,” lifted the podium from the stage, tossed it in the corner and began to roast the crowd: He called out former Gov. Jim Douglas for leaving early, teased women in the front row and scoffed at the media for investigating his intention to run for office in 2016.
