Finally off jury duty -- the case was going to extend into next week, at which point I would be bankrupt and my eight-year-old daughter turned into a latchkey kid. I skipped out of the room with a positively Clintonian (Bill) mixture of guilt and relief, as hardier souls mired in the voir dire stared at me in resentment. But the judge understood: "Mr. Cummins," he said, "as soon as I knew the case was going over, I said, this man is going to have a problem with that."
Bless you, Judge Harold Fullilove...
As I said yesterday, I do wax nostalgic about certain campaign conventions of the past, one of them being the direct and immediate response of hurling objects at a candidate whose opinion you disagree with. In this day and age, however, you're likely to get tasered merely for hurling words (you all saw the John Kerry fracas, right?) But one of my favorite candidates of all time--Wendell Willkie, the bigger-than-life Thomas Wolfe of presidential politics--was a magnet for tossed objects. Willkie was a Republican, but a crusading, maverick one with strong populist support who gave Franklin Delano Roosevelt a pretty good run for his money in 1940. Roosevelt even considered briefly trying to smear the married Willkie by revealing that the handsome, tousle-haired lawyer was having an affair with one Irita Van Doren, a New York writer and editor who was the former wife of Carl Van Doren (uncle to Charles Van Doren of 1950s quiz show notoriety).
This didn't happen, for interesting reasons which I will go into at another time, but Roosevelt was probably the only one who ever held his fire when Willkie was concerned. Whenever the Republican stepped up to speak at podiums in Democratic strongholds like Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland, etc., he had to duck a veritable hailstorm of objects. One reporter covering the campaign counted cantaloupes, potatoes, onions, tomatoes,oranges, eggs, ashtrays, phonebooks, and even a bedspread.
Willkie usually took such attacks in stride, although outside Detroit he lunged at one protester who had spattered his wife with an egg.
Hurled tomatoes have gone the way of torchlight parades and hard cider, and I suppose its a good thing, but...they did bring a delightful anarchy to the campaign trail...
But enough of me spouting off. Here's a little pop quiz: which U.S. presidential campaign contained the following immortal slogans:
"Let's be done with wiggle and wobble."
"America first!"
"A return to normalcy!"
First in with the correct reply gets one free copy of Anything for a Vote.
Friday, September 21, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Bumper stickers
Just back from a long day at jury duty, with another long one coming tomorrow. I am the star of voir dires, a jury magnet. Friends spend their time knitting, catching up on their sleep and reading old Frederick Forsythe novels, while no sooner do I enter a room than both prosecution and defense pounce: we want the guy! Put him in the box!
Telling them I'm a freelance writer who needs to toil every day to make his lousy nickel does no good, nor does venturing less than politically correct opinions, or even dressing to the nines (current get-out-of-jury-duty folklore says that if you show up really well-dressed--say, a fur coat or three piece-suit--you're a cinch to be handed your walking papers).
But I don't have a three piece suit. (I do have a fur coat, but that's another story, believe me.) In any event, ever the Dirty Tricks historian, I was interested to note that the judge asked each prospective juror, during a long interrogation about personal preferences in television shows, exercise routines, and the like, if he or she had any bumper stickers. In particular, he seemed to be interested in "political bumper stickers."
He came up with zero--well, one young man had a decal reading "Honk If You're Horny"--but I could have told him that. Great, nasty presidential election bumper stickers seem to be a thing of the past. Newsweek ran an interesting piece a few months ago on the current crop of candidates and their stickers (read it here), but these are the designed-by-New York-logo-designer, campaign- sanctioned ones. What about all the "Trick Nixon Before He Tricks You" and "Cart Away Carter" bumper stickers that used to appear? Too soon, perhaps -- we do have 13 months to go, although it doesn't feel like it-- but your Dirty Tricks historian fondly remembers the days when two cars used to talk to each other--nay, snarl--as in 1964:
Goldwater supporter: IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW HE'S RIGHT
Johnson supporter: IN YOUR GUTS YOU KNOW HE'S NUTS.
Don't get me started on the good old days or before long I'll be pining nostalgic for tomato throwing. Remember when people used to actually throw things at candidates? Chances are you don't. I'll refresh your memory tomorrow after a long day spent in the halls of justice. Perhaps I will wear my fur coat, after all....
Telling them I'm a freelance writer who needs to toil every day to make his lousy nickel does no good, nor does venturing less than politically correct opinions, or even dressing to the nines (current get-out-of-jury-duty folklore says that if you show up really well-dressed--say, a fur coat or three piece-suit--you're a cinch to be handed your walking papers).
But I don't have a three piece suit. (I do have a fur coat, but that's another story, believe me.) In any event, ever the Dirty Tricks historian, I was interested to note that the judge asked each prospective juror, during a long interrogation about personal preferences in television shows, exercise routines, and the like, if he or she had any bumper stickers. In particular, he seemed to be interested in "political bumper stickers."
He came up with zero--well, one young man had a decal reading "Honk If You're Horny"--but I could have told him that. Great, nasty presidential election bumper stickers seem to be a thing of the past. Newsweek ran an interesting piece a few months ago on the current crop of candidates and their stickers (read it here), but these are the designed-by-New York-logo-designer, campaign- sanctioned ones. What about all the "Trick Nixon Before He Tricks You" and "Cart Away Carter" bumper stickers that used to appear? Too soon, perhaps -- we do have 13 months to go, although it doesn't feel like it-- but your Dirty Tricks historian fondly remembers the days when two cars used to talk to each other--nay, snarl--as in 1964:
Goldwater supporter: IN YOUR HEART YOU KNOW HE'S RIGHT
Johnson supporter: IN YOUR GUTS YOU KNOW HE'S NUTS.
Don't get me started on the good old days or before long I'll be pining nostalgic for tomato throwing. Remember when people used to actually throw things at candidates? Chances are you don't. I'll refresh your memory tomorrow after a long day spent in the halls of justice. Perhaps I will wear my fur coat, after all....
Anything for a Vote Mailed to Presidential Candidates
Copies of Anything for a Vote are being mailed to the 2008 presidential candidates today. I hope that Hillary, Barack, Fred, Rudy, John E., John Mc., and Mitt all have a sense of humor. Anything for a Vote is also being mailed to President George W. Bush. (Both his of presidential runs are considered two of the dirtiest election campaigns of all time.) In addtion, a book is being sent to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Al Gore for good measure, of course.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Is it 1993?
Sen. Hillary Clinton dismissed critics of her new health care plan today. Clinton, D-New York, told CNN, "I feel very good and quite confident that the parts of the plan that I have put together will find a lot of favor among people who know what we have to do to get to universal coverage.”
This all seems to harken back to Clinton’s—Bill, that is—first term as president when Hillary was first lady and universal health care was her mission. But before Bill was elected pres, he was running against the first George Bush in 1992. (Hey, remember H. Ross Perot?)
William Jefferson Clinton vs. George H. W. Bush
“All I’ve been asked about by the press are a woman I didn’t sleep with and a draft I didn’t dodge.” –Bill Clinton
Just after the successful completion of his one-hundred-hour Gulf War in the fall of 1990, George H. W. Bush approval ratings reached an astonishing ninety percent; he seemed unbeatable in a second term. After twelve years of prosperous Republican rule coupled with extremely weak Democratic presidential candidates, some pundits began to wonder whether the Democratic Party was heading toward political extinction like the Whigs or the Federalists.
But as the Bush Administration progressed, the approval rating slowly started to fall. War may have made Bush a hero, but he never earned the fanatically loyal following of a Ronald Reagan. He broke his famous 1988 pledge of “Read my lips: No new taxes,” which left him open to Democratic attack. Reagan’s legacy of a staggering four-trillion-dollar national debt (up three trillion since 1980) didn’t help much, either. There may have been an explosion of wealth in the top one percent of the American population, but one in ten Americans was living on food stamps, and one in eight lived below the poverty level.
The relatively obscure field of Democratic candidates included Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas. But Bush had more than Democrats to worry about. Conservative Christian columnist and former Nixon speech writer Pat Buchanan ran well in the primaries, showing that the religious right would not be denied its share of the action. And the fourteenth wealthiest person in the United States, billionaire Texan H. Ross Perot, decided to hell with Federal matching funds, he’d pay for his own campaign--and mounted the most successful third-party challenge since Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party in 1912.
The Candidates
Democrat: William “Bill” Clinton
If there could be such a thing as a “log cabin” presidential candidate in the late twentieth century--an era when nearly every candidate was born with a silver spoon in his mouth--that candidate was William Jefferson Clinton. He was born poor in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946. His father had died in a car accident when he was only three months old, and his stepfather was an abusive alcoholic. Clinton triumphed over all these circumstances to become a Rhodes scholar, go to Yale Law School and, in 1978, become the governor of Arkansas at thirty-two years old.
Married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton was extraordinarily charismatic--six-foot-two, handsome, empathetic (“I feel your pain”), and a brilliant “policy wonk” with an impressive memory for details. However, according to Republicans, there was the little problem of his being “a pot-smoking, philandering, draft dodger.”
Clinton’s running mate was another southerner, Tennessee Senator Al Gore.
Republican: George H. W. Bush
By the time the election heated up in the summer of 1992, Bush’s approval ratings had dropped to roughly forty percent. Twenty-one years older than his Democratic opponent, he tried to run on his success in foreign affairs, while glossing over his tax increase and the country’s huge deficit, but he lacked both charisma and empathy. While Clinton “felt” the country’s pain, Bush said, in his weird verbal shorthand, “Message: I care.” Focus groups commissioned by the Republican National Committee found that his wife, Barbara, now had higher approval ratings than the president--and his dog, Millie, wasn’t far behind. Even though Bush was told that dumping his hapless vice president J. Danforth Quayle, would generate a net gain of as much as six points in the approval ratings, Bush wouldn’t give up the guy.
This all seems to harken back to Clinton’s—Bill, that is—first term as president when Hillary was first lady and universal health care was her mission. But before Bill was elected pres, he was running against the first George Bush in 1992. (Hey, remember H. Ross Perot?)
William Jefferson Clinton vs. George H. W. Bush
“All I’ve been asked about by the press are a woman I didn’t sleep with and a draft I didn’t dodge.” –Bill Clinton
Just after the successful completion of his one-hundred-hour Gulf War in the fall of 1990, George H. W. Bush approval ratings reached an astonishing ninety percent; he seemed unbeatable in a second term. After twelve years of prosperous Republican rule coupled with extremely weak Democratic presidential candidates, some pundits began to wonder whether the Democratic Party was heading toward political extinction like the Whigs or the Federalists.
But as the Bush Administration progressed, the approval rating slowly started to fall. War may have made Bush a hero, but he never earned the fanatically loyal following of a Ronald Reagan. He broke his famous 1988 pledge of “Read my lips: No new taxes,” which left him open to Democratic attack. Reagan’s legacy of a staggering four-trillion-dollar national debt (up three trillion since 1980) didn’t help much, either. There may have been an explosion of wealth in the top one percent of the American population, but one in ten Americans was living on food stamps, and one in eight lived below the poverty level.
The relatively obscure field of Democratic candidates included Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey, Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton, and Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas. But Bush had more than Democrats to worry about. Conservative Christian columnist and former Nixon speech writer Pat Buchanan ran well in the primaries, showing that the religious right would not be denied its share of the action. And the fourteenth wealthiest person in the United States, billionaire Texan H. Ross Perot, decided to hell with Federal matching funds, he’d pay for his own campaign--and mounted the most successful third-party challenge since Teddy Roosevelt and his Bull Moose Party in 1912.
The Candidates
Democrat: William “Bill” Clinton
If there could be such a thing as a “log cabin” presidential candidate in the late twentieth century--an era when nearly every candidate was born with a silver spoon in his mouth--that candidate was William Jefferson Clinton. He was born poor in Hope, Arkansas, in 1946. His father had died in a car accident when he was only three months old, and his stepfather was an abusive alcoholic. Clinton triumphed over all these circumstances to become a Rhodes scholar, go to Yale Law School and, in 1978, become the governor of Arkansas at thirty-two years old.
Married to Hillary Rodham Clinton, Bill Clinton was extraordinarily charismatic--six-foot-two, handsome, empathetic (“I feel your pain”), and a brilliant “policy wonk” with an impressive memory for details. However, according to Republicans, there was the little problem of his being “a pot-smoking, philandering, draft dodger.”
Clinton’s running mate was another southerner, Tennessee Senator Al Gore.
Republican: George H. W. Bush
By the time the election heated up in the summer of 1992, Bush’s approval ratings had dropped to roughly forty percent. Twenty-one years older than his Democratic opponent, he tried to run on his success in foreign affairs, while glossing over his tax increase and the country’s huge deficit, but he lacked both charisma and empathy. While Clinton “felt” the country’s pain, Bush said, in his weird verbal shorthand, “Message: I care.” Focus groups commissioned by the Republican National Committee found that his wife, Barbara, now had higher approval ratings than the president--and his dog, Millie, wasn’t far behind. Even though Bush was told that dumping his hapless vice president J. Danforth Quayle, would generate a net gain of as much as six points in the approval ratings, Bush wouldn’t give up the guy.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Gipper Redux
In 1952, Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson's aide George Ball, furious at the clever way the Republicans were packaging Dwight Eisenhower on television, declared that someday "presidential campaigns would have professional actors as candidates."
It was one of the truest predictions a disgruntled staffer of a losing candidate ever made.
The news that thespian Fred Thompson is finally in the race--and announced his candidacy on that hoariest of venues, "The Tonight Show"--sent my heart a-fluttering for the grand old days of Ronald Reagan's first presidential run in 1980. Today's Times discusses Thompson's desire to "don Reagan's mantle," but I'm not sure the erstwhile character actor is even fit to tie the Gipper's sandals, candidate-wise.
In 1980, Reagan--sixty-nine years old and grinning from ear to ear--hit America like a breath of, er, air freshener, blowing away the stale odor of the intrepid but grim Carter presidency with a cheery aerosol hiss. Carter measured his words, even down to the "lust in his heart," while Reagan was prone to astonishing statements. He said "the finest oil geologists" had told him America had more oil than Saudi Arabia. He claimed the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens released more sulfur dioxide into the air "than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving." In the New Hampshire primary, reporters overheard him telling a joke that began: "How do you tell who the Polish fellow is at a cockfight? He's the one with the duck!" When reports of this were published, Reagan claimed that he was merely providing an example of the kind of jokes that candidates shouldn't tell.
It is doubtful that Thompson, whose main facial expression is that of a man trying to stifle a pressing bowel movement, can provide us with this level of entertainment. We can only hope.
It definitely worked for Reagan, who cleaned Carter's clock for him, taking the popular vote by almost nine million and winning the electoral tallies in all but five states. Of course, it didn't help matters any that Jimmy Carter had a tendency to cite his thirteen-year-old daughter on matters of national importance ("I had a discussion with my daughter Amy the other day...to ask her what the most important issue was. She said nuclear weaponry.")
Yep, as Ronnie would say, there he went again....
It was one of the truest predictions a disgruntled staffer of a losing candidate ever made.
The news that thespian Fred Thompson is finally in the race--and announced his candidacy on that hoariest of venues, "The Tonight Show"--sent my heart a-fluttering for the grand old days of Ronald Reagan's first presidential run in 1980. Today's Times discusses Thompson's desire to "don Reagan's mantle," but I'm not sure the erstwhile character actor is even fit to tie the Gipper's sandals, candidate-wise.
In 1980, Reagan--sixty-nine years old and grinning from ear to ear--hit America like a breath of, er, air freshener, blowing away the stale odor of the intrepid but grim Carter presidency with a cheery aerosol hiss. Carter measured his words, even down to the "lust in his heart," while Reagan was prone to astonishing statements. He said "the finest oil geologists" had told him America had more oil than Saudi Arabia. He claimed the eruption of Mt. Saint Helens released more sulfur dioxide into the air "than has been released in the last ten years of automobile driving." In the New Hampshire primary, reporters overheard him telling a joke that began: "How do you tell who the Polish fellow is at a cockfight? He's the one with the duck!" When reports of this were published, Reagan claimed that he was merely providing an example of the kind of jokes that candidates shouldn't tell.
It is doubtful that Thompson, whose main facial expression is that of a man trying to stifle a pressing bowel movement, can provide us with this level of entertainment. We can only hope.
It definitely worked for Reagan, who cleaned Carter's clock for him, taking the popular vote by almost nine million and winning the electoral tallies in all but five states. Of course, it didn't help matters any that Jimmy Carter had a tendency to cite his thirteen-year-old daughter on matters of national importance ("I had a discussion with my daughter Amy the other day...to ask her what the most important issue was. She said nuclear weaponry.")
Yep, as Ronnie would say, there he went again....
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
The Men's Room Club
Senator Larry E. Craig's (R-Idaho) arrest and guilty plea after soliciting sex from a cop in a men's room in the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport last June brings to mind, as many have pointed out, numerous like incidents in the recent past particularly among Republicans. While I deplore hypocrisy--Craig was a typical "family values" guy, opposed to any type of equal rights for gays--I can't help but feel sad at a world in which these poor shlubs, wearing their American flag lapel pins, are driven underground and into the steely hands of undercover thugs. Craig had been Idaho's Republican state chairperson and liaison with the Romney campaign and Mitt's comments on the incident only prove him, once again, to be the creepiest candidate out there, somewhere right up there with two-time Republican presidential nominee Thomas Dewey in slick meanness.
Historians of dirty tricks will recall another incident in a men's room way back in the contentious Barry Goldwater-Lyndon Johnson contest of 1964. In October of that year, Johnson's top aide, 46-year-old Walter Jenkins, married with five children, attended a Washington party, drank five martinis, and then repaired around the corner to the basement men's room of a YMCA, where he was in the midst of having sex with another man when they were surprised by a plainclothes cop and arrested.
Johnson tried to claim Jenkins was framed by the Republicans, but when it turned out his aide had been arrested on the same charge--and in the same men's room--some five years earlier, he cut him loose. Jenkins spent time in an institution and then went back to Texas where he worked as a CPA, doing Johnson's tax returns year after year, but never again returning to Washington in any position of power--something bemoaned by many, who felt that without Jenkins's leavening influence, Johnson began to take the country deeper into the Vietnam War.
Barry Goldwater's comment on the whole affair--delivered way-off-the-record on his campaign plane--was: "What a way to win an election, communists and cocksuckers!"
In a tragicomic epilogue, routine White House tape recordings later released under the Freedom of Information Act caught LBJ ruminating over Jenkins with none other than J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director.
"I guess you're gonna have to teach me about this stuff," Johnson said to Hoover. "I swear I can never recognize [gay people]."
To which Hoover, long rumored to be gay himself, as Johnson must certainly have known, replied reassuringly: "There are some people who walk kind of funny that you might think may be queer. But there was no indication of that in Jenkins's case."
Historians of dirty tricks will recall another incident in a men's room way back in the contentious Barry Goldwater-Lyndon Johnson contest of 1964. In October of that year, Johnson's top aide, 46-year-old Walter Jenkins, married with five children, attended a Washington party, drank five martinis, and then repaired around the corner to the basement men's room of a YMCA, where he was in the midst of having sex with another man when they were surprised by a plainclothes cop and arrested.
Johnson tried to claim Jenkins was framed by the Republicans, but when it turned out his aide had been arrested on the same charge--and in the same men's room--some five years earlier, he cut him loose. Jenkins spent time in an institution and then went back to Texas where he worked as a CPA, doing Johnson's tax returns year after year, but never again returning to Washington in any position of power--something bemoaned by many, who felt that without Jenkins's leavening influence, Johnson began to take the country deeper into the Vietnam War.
Barry Goldwater's comment on the whole affair--delivered way-off-the-record on his campaign plane--was: "What a way to win an election, communists and cocksuckers!"
In a tragicomic epilogue, routine White House tape recordings later released under the Freedom of Information Act caught LBJ ruminating over Jenkins with none other than J. Edgar Hoover, FBI Director.
"I guess you're gonna have to teach me about this stuff," Johnson said to Hoover. "I swear I can never recognize [gay people]."
To which Hoover, long rumored to be gay himself, as Johnson must certainly have known, replied reassuringly: "There are some people who walk kind of funny that you might think may be queer. But there was no indication of that in Jenkins's case."
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Playing Checkers
Sunday AM with the wife and kid away, just me and the cat--a tiny ten-week-old terror named Mimi, found by a friend under her hydrangea bush--and the New York Times, where I learned from Jodi Kantor's piece that there are a lot of tiny terrors running around the campaign trail, too. These are children, not felines, all under the age of ten, who belong to John Edwards, Barack Obama, Chris Dodd, Sam Brownback, etc.
Observe the video of John Edwards putting the hammer down on his sulky son, Jack--Edwards' reaction seems a little extreme, given the provocation, but most parents will recognize this as a classic "tip of the iceberg" response, in which the kid has been driving you crazy for about a week now, so the slightest thing makes you blow, particularly if he's embarrassing you in front of the Times.
Campaign trails are no place for kids, but I'd prefer these young louts to the older variety as represented by the five Romney boys. I hesitate even to link to their "fivebrothersblog." Here is a representative entry, from Josh: "I kept busy all day doing about 10 television, radio and print interviews. It's pretty exhausting, I still have no idea how my dad is able to do it day after day. Here's a shot of me with Tom and Austin from the Liddy and Hill show."
Whew. It's pretty exhausting just reading that, Josh.
But no politician has ever used his kids like Dick Nixon did in the Dwight Eisenhower/Adlai Stevenson contest of 1952, during his famous "Checkers" speech on national television. Nixon, then the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had been accused of being the recipient of an 18000 dollar "slush fund" set up for him by a rich Republican businessman. Nixon is absolutely insane during this speech, introducing his wife, Pat ("My wife's sitting over here. She's a wonderful stenographer. She used to teach stenography") and himself as ordinary Americans struggling to pay off simple debts and make ends meet.
But he really kicked it into high gear when he talked about his girls, Tricia and Julie, and the little dog an admirer had given them. “It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it."
Nixon was so worked up at the end of the speech that he kept on walking towards the cameras, talking and pleading, even after he had been given the "cut" signal. He only seemed to come out of his trance when he literally banged into the camera, at which point, according to his director, he began to weep copiously. But, hey, America loved him and Dwight Eisenhower, although he didn't like it much, kept Nixon on as his veep.
Would Edwards et al ever be so crass as to use their kids in such a fashion? Heaven forbid, right?
Observe the video of John Edwards putting the hammer down on his sulky son, Jack--Edwards' reaction seems a little extreme, given the provocation, but most parents will recognize this as a classic "tip of the iceberg" response, in which the kid has been driving you crazy for about a week now, so the slightest thing makes you blow, particularly if he's embarrassing you in front of the Times.
Campaign trails are no place for kids, but I'd prefer these young louts to the older variety as represented by the five Romney boys. I hesitate even to link to their "fivebrothersblog." Here is a representative entry, from Josh: "I kept busy all day doing about 10 television, radio and print interviews. It's pretty exhausting, I still have no idea how my dad is able to do it day after day. Here's a shot of me with Tom and Austin from the Liddy and Hill show."
Whew. It's pretty exhausting just reading that, Josh.
But no politician has ever used his kids like Dick Nixon did in the Dwight Eisenhower/Adlai Stevenson contest of 1952, during his famous "Checkers" speech on national television. Nixon, then the Republican vice-presidential nominee, had been accused of being the recipient of an 18000 dollar "slush fund" set up for him by a rich Republican businessman. Nixon is absolutely insane during this speech, introducing his wife, Pat ("My wife's sitting over here. She's a wonderful stenographer. She used to teach stenography") and himself as ordinary Americans struggling to pay off simple debts and make ends meet.
But he really kicked it into high gear when he talked about his girls, Tricia and Julie, and the little dog an admirer had given them. “It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it."
Nixon was so worked up at the end of the speech that he kept on walking towards the cameras, talking and pleading, even after he had been given the "cut" signal. He only seemed to come out of his trance when he literally banged into the camera, at which point, according to his director, he began to weep copiously. But, hey, America loved him and Dwight Eisenhower, although he didn't like it much, kept Nixon on as his veep.
Would Edwards et al ever be so crass as to use their kids in such a fashion? Heaven forbid, right?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
