I Miss Dan Quayle

I really do. He was such a funny man. However, no one, besides maybe Spiro Agnew, was as funny as James Watt. I thought of him the other day, as I encountered in a grocery store, in this order: a black fellow, two women, one of whom was most probably Jewish, and the other in a wheel chair.

It's good that I don't have Tourette's Syndrome. I did have to stifle a giggle, however. It is not everyday that you see a particularly bad political speech come to life before your very eyes. It would have been like seeing Checkers, alive as you or me.

I dreamed I saw Nixon's Dog last night
Alive as you and me...

It has a nice ring. I could hear Joan Baez singing it, if Joan Baez had even the slightest hint of a sense of humor. Aw. I shouldn't be so hard on Joan Baez. She did call Amalia "cute" once (and it was a totally spontaneous thing: she was sitting outside at a restaurant, and we were just passing by).

Anyway, I have always wanted to form a band called "A Black, A Woman, Two Jews and a Cripple...And We Have Talent!" It would be fronted by a nerdy bald westerner. They could do Beach Boys songs.

Not that I would want to listen to any of that.

But I do like to listen to politicians like James Watt, LBJ, George Wallace, Dan Quayle, and Spiro Agnew. IF we have to have liberal democracy (pheh!), then at least it ought to be funny. I want to hear that "a mind is a terrible thing to waste...or to not have at all." I want to hear "nattering nabobs of negativism." I want to hear that paternalistic Texas drawl talking about defeating Communism in Southeast Asia.

That is one of the problems with Bush: he just isn't very interesting a speaker. I was listening to him the other day at the press conference, and he did a decent job, but...so what? No one really learns anything at those things. He almost got funny with some online reporter, but he didn't get a twinkle in his eye and say, "why, I bet you there are two four-letter words I know that you don't know: w-o-r-k and s-o-a-p."

And W could do it, too. It wouldn't be too much to ask for him to look the camera in the lens and say, "well, perhaps it isn't treason to vote the way they did, but if I were on the jury...I just don't think I could easily find the reasonable doubt...And treason's a capital offense. You know, I hope it doesn't come to that, but..."

That would get those Demos stomping and cursing and snorting!

Cheney. Now he has potential. If only his handlers would give him more time in front of the microphone. That could be a whole lotta fun.

Posted by erik at February 16, 2007 11:27 PM