Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Colorful politicians

Americans like a politician with a colorful past, and they usually don't have to look far. Bill Clinton certainly qualified, and if you just wanted to sit around and have a bull session you'd probably want him around, as long as you're not in the White House.

Jail needn't stop you. Here in DC Marion Barry is back in the local govt again. There are many other examples, my favorite being Boston's former mayor James Michael Curley.

I can't trace this Curley story as I write this, and I don't have time to authenticate it to Big Media standards (you know, typing it up in Word, copying the copies for a few generations, getting rid of the original, and claiming that I got it from some mystery woman...). But hey, this is a blog - I have no credibility anyway!

Anyway, Curley is in the hospital in bad shape, being fed rectally through a tube. But one day he perked up and noticed that he was being serviced by a pretty nurse. So he proposed that the next day she should bring two tubes so they could have lunch together. Now that's the spirit...Strom Thurmond probably went the same way, and I'm expecting similar from Bill Clinton.

Color is great, but it can be overdone. Consider the politician from Montana who took too much silver for its supposed medical benefits. Now his skin has turned blue, and I'm told the condition is permanent.

Now John Kerry has changed color, to orange. His aides claim it happened over the weekend playing football. Good grief. Having been around competitive dancers, I know that color - it's a fake tan from a bottle.

It won't help. They can paint John Kerry orange, but they can't give him appeal.

Get it? A peel? Like an orange? Oh, never mind...

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