Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.7.0.10 $; site trsvax Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!convex!trsvax!gm From: gm@trsvax Newsgroups: net.jokes Subject: Dave Barry: Presidential Politics Message-ID: <53100170@trsvax> Date: Mon, 3-Feb-86 18:45:00 EST Article-I.D.: trsvax.53100170 Posted: Mon Feb 3 18:45:00 1986 Date-Received: Fri, 7-Feb-86 21:01:13 EST Lines: 81 Nf-ID: #N:trsvax:53100170:000:4379 Nf-From: trsvax!gm Feb 3 17:45:00 1986 On Presidential Politics -By Dave Barry Well, here it is, 1983, so it won't be long before you start reading a lot of boring stories about people like Vance Hartke. Hartke is a governor or mayor or something from one of the flatter states, and the reason you'll be reading about him is that he's one of the 50 top contenders for the 1984 Democratic presidential nomination. These men will spend the next 18 months going around the country engaging in the most degrading activities imaginable, such as wearing idiot hats and appearing on "Meet the Press". "Meet the Press" is one of those Sunday morning public interest shows that the public is not the least bit interested in. It features a panel of reporters who ask questions of a guest politician, who wins an Amana home freezer if he can get through the entire show without answering a single question: REPORTER: Senator, are you for or against the MX missile system? SENATOR: Bob, the MX missile system reminds me of an old saying that the country folk in my state like to say. It goes like this: "You can carry a pig for six miles, but if you set it down it might run away." I have no idea why the country folk say this. Maybe there's some kind of chemical pollutant in their drinking water. That is why I pledge to do all that I can to protect the environment of this great nation of ours, and put prayer back in the schools, where it belongs. What we need is jobs, not empty promises. I realize I'm risking my political career be being so outspoken on a sensitive issue such as the MX, but that's just the kind of straight-talking honest person I am, and I can't help it. And so it goes, question after question, until by the end of the show the politician has demonstrated that he is genetically incapable of answering a question directly, and is therefore qualified to be president. The question is, why are politicians so eager to be president? What is it about the job that makes it worth revealing, on national television, that you have the ethical standards of a slime-coated piece of industrial waste? The answer is presidential trips. Every few months, when he gets bored with shaking hands with Eagle Scouts in the Oval Office, the president can simply summon the presidential plane and fly off to several foreign countries and stay for free in really nice hotels. The main purpose for these trips is to improve our relations with our allies, all of whom hate our guts. The president tries to bring them around by giving them weapons and large sums of money. Recently, for example, President Reagan went to South America to improve our relations with various countries he had never heard of until he read about them in the Encyclopedia Britannica on the flight down. The president chose South America because it's warm and contains many vital resources. For example, Bolivia has 85 percent of the world's tin reserves. Can we afford to let our relations with such a vital country deteriorate? Can we afford to let the world's tin supply fall into the hands of international communism? Sure. I mean, really, who needs tin? I can certainly live without it. But, President Reagan was really hot to get out of the White House, so he went to a whole batch of South American countries and had sensitive, high-level, relations-improving diplomatic talks with foreign leaders: PRESIDENT REAGAN: So, what do you say we improve our relations? FOREIGN LEADER: No hablo ingles. (Translation: "I do not speak English.") PRESIDENT REAGAN: Here's 300 million dollars in foreign aid, plus 16 atomic bazooka helicopters. FOREIGN LEADER: Throw in military-style hats for me and the other fellows in the junta, and you got yourself a deal. * * * Besides having sensitive negotiations, the only other job the President has on trips is to attend formal state dinners and propose toasts: PRESIDENT: On behalf of the people of the United States of America, who could not be with us tonight on account of they have to work tomorrow, I propose a toast to the people of Paraguay, or whatever country this is. In my country, we have a saying about how far you can carry a pig before it runs away... [Copyright 1983 Knight-Ridder News Services. Re-printed with permission. Original article published Jan, 1983.]