Once
again, I owe a debt to Jimmy Cannon, the late and truly great New York
sportswriter who, from time to time, wrote a column full of witty and
sentimental one-liners he called, "Nobody asked me, but ..."
Has any of the scores of pontificators or columnists who condemned Reps.
Tom Davis, R-Va., and Henry Waxman, D-Calif., for holding the congressional
hearings on steroids in baseball -- where Baltimore Oriole Rafael Palmeiro
self-righteously testified he had never used those evil performance-enhancing
substances -- seen fit to apologize to the two House members now that
Palmeiro's own drug tests exposes him as a brazen liar?
My friend Reilly has the perfect put-down for that officious secretary
with the superior, mock-British accent who fends off all phone calls to
her boss with some icy variation of, "Can I tell him the subject
of your call?" Reilly's answer: "I'm calling about the alimony,"
or, "I have the final results of his blood test."
After watching Dr. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., the Senate majority leader, do
"a 180" from his diagnosis of Terry Schiavo via videotape to
his recent endorsement of stem cell research, I have to admit I worship
the quicksand he walks on.
If it really is true that curiosity killed the cat, then George W. Bush
will live forever.
I can't help it, but whenever I see one of those oval, white status stickers
on the car in front of me with OBX (Outer Banks), MV (Martha's Vineyard)
or ACK (the airline code for Nantucket), I rush to judgment that the driver
is a snob.
If George Bush's policy is to be blamed for the chaos and conflict that
is today Iraq, do not the same president and his policy rate some credit
for the withdrawal of thousands of Israeli settlers from two dozen communities
on the Gaza Strip and the West Bank?
Thanks to the genius of Vince Vaughn playing the bounder, Jeremy Gray,
"Wedding Crashers" is hands-down, or thumbs-up, the funniest
movie of the year.
There is no surer way to curb my generous tipping instinct than for the
hovering waiter -- exactly one nanosecond after your food is put on the
table -- to ask solicitously, before you have had a taste, "Is everything
all right?"
"No," I intend to answer, "my brother-in-law has bought
Danskins and tap shoes and wants to be a Manhattan Rockette, the Red Sox
have no pitching, the Nationals have no hitting, and the Democrats have
no pulse. Any other questions?"
Wouldn't it be truly refreshing if one 2006 candidate called a press conference
where he candidly stated: "Today, I'm announcing my withdrawal from
my family so that I can spend more time with my first love -- my own political
career"?
American voters may be philosophically conservative. They do regularly
complain that they want the federal government off their backs, and out
of both their pockets and their hair. But these same people are operationally
liberal.
When told that just outside Pocatello, Idaho, a single can of tuna fish
has been found with a trace of botulism, they have an identical response:
"Where the hell was the federal government? I demand a full report
on my desk the first thing Monday morning!"
They all want a small, efficient federal government working on their side
24 hours a day ... cheap.
Proof that shame is officially dead: Rush Limbaugh attacked Ohio Democratic
congressional candidate Paul Hackett, a Marine who voluntarily spent seven
months in Ramadi and Fallujah, of going "to Iraq to pad the resume."
Why is it that the administration says that critics' call for an orderly
withdrawal plan of U.S. troops by a timetable would "embolden"
the insurgents and terrorists and put Americans at greater risk, but when
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, says there could be
"some fairly substantial reductions" in troops by next spring,
apparently the terrorists pay no attention at all?
You can fool some of the people all of the time ... and those are the
ones you should concentrate on.
