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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WTSherman who wrote (122296)	1/17/2001 1:40:04 AM
From: Zoltan!	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

>>Hey, fat Dick, don't you think just about everybody else had "other priorities" than going to Vietnam?????? What a phony bag of gas. You must be referring to Clinton. Only a dope would put Cheney, who had a family - children - in the same category as the renown drafter dodger and Coward-in-Chief, the Boy Prez, Clinton. Clinton, indubitably the greatest Prez as Joke ever: January 17, 2001 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- So Long, Bill. Comedy Will Miss You. By Chris Harris, a writer for "The Late Show With David Letterman." Perjury. Impeachment. Adultery. Harassment. Property scams. Estrangement. Staff firings. Creative word definitions. Who can doubt that Bill Clinton has been our nation's greatest president? Granted, the late-night comedy writer has different priorities than the average American. Our idea of an international tragedy would be for Saddam Hussein to shave his moustache. But God knows we never had it better than under the man known as Bubba. "I feel your pain, do you mind if I keep feeling . . . " Like any assembly line worker, comedy writers must churn out material daily, no matter what the news. The topics of monologues, Top 10 lists and other short segments are all determined in morning conference while comparing the day's tabloid headlines. Some days we open the paper to read that Fabio was hit in the face by a goose while riding a roller coaster, and we pause in reverent gratitude to a generous God. Other days, the most exciting article is an analysis of monetary policy. Important events worthy of merciless ridicule have never been guaranteed. Then came Bill Clinton. He was juvenile, portly and Southern -- the best comic elements of Kennedy, Taft and Carter, all rolled up into one globular package. He played a woodwind instrument. He ate Happy Meals. He had a manipulative wife, a boozy brother and the strangest hair we had ever seen. Far from a man who could be reduced to a single reference ("uh, uh . . . Quayle is dumb?"), Mr. Clinton was a multidimensional wad of comedic potential. Best of all, in keeping with his workaholic tendencies, he wrote the punchlines for us. I have gone for weeks without coming up with anything as good as "I didn't inhale." And when Gennifer Flowers came to light, so did the one feature that would prove to be his Achilles' heel. Hint: It was not his heel. "I did not have sexual relations with that woman. Now, those women over there . . . " I'll be honest. We comedy writers don't want to work hard. Spending too much time writing for David Letterman gets in the way of our hanging out in bars telling people that we write for David Letterman. Under Mr. Clinton, work was never easier. We always knew that our payoff joke, the final one to top all others, would somehow be tied to our nation's leader. The day Congress released Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr's report to the public, we ordered lunch in, gathered in front of the television, and wrote a week's worth of material in mere hours. Our ridicule, like the accusations and like the president himself, might have been overblown. But this was more than comedy; it was history. Mr. Clinton removed the last vestiges of respect for our chief executive, respect that began eroding the moment Nixon said "Sock it to me!" Writers and pundits will for years to come have wider leeway than ever (huzzah!) in denigrating our leaders. Once a nation has come to learn its president's taste in underwear, no future elected official is safe. "Is? I have no idea what the meaning of that word is. Is that even a word? I don't think it is…" Now he's leaving us, and we'll miss him. We'll miss his completely inscrutable taste in women. We'll miss the way he brought our nation's extremely unhealthy cigar fad to a screeching halt. We'll even miss all these jokes about how much we'll miss him. But in each of our offices, souvenirs of his legacy will live on. The Franklin Mint Impeachment Chess Set. Mr. Clinton's daily schedule, with every other activity listed as "Apologize to nation." A marked- up 1997 directory of the year's interns. The lyric sheet to Paul Shaffer's song about all the impeached presidents. (Complete lyrics: "There's Johnson! There's Clinton! Yeah!") A pair of the Executive Briefs. An issue of Cigar Aficionado naming Ms. Lewinsky their Woman of the Year. The remains of the Clinton presidency will always be with us. The future may not look completely grim for comedy writers (our thanks to the state of Florida), but still there's a feeling that a golden age is passing. From the haircut on the tarmac to the stain on the dress, we salute you, Mr. President. It was a great ride for us too. interactive.wsj.com

To: WTSherman who wrote (122296)	1/17/2001 8:22:57 AM
From: H-Man	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Ahem, You conveniently omit the fact that Colin Powel served in Vietnam. Here is another clue: MOST PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY WHO WERE OF DRAFT AGE DURING THE WAR DID NOT GET DRAFTED AND DID NOT GO TO VIETNAM. MOST WHO WERE IN COLLEGE GOT DEFERRMENTS. Again you post false and distorted information. Find a letter from any of them, stating that they loathe the military and you may have a point. But you won't, and you don't. No wonder you voted gore.