"Elections are a good deal like marriages. There's no accounting for anyone's taste. Every time we see a bridegroom we wonder why she ever picked him, and it's the same with public officials."—Humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)
I’m so glad the elections are over, aren’t you? I had almost gotten accustomed to the nonstop ads for the New Jersey gubernatorial and New York mayoralty races when I was hit with a ton of robocalls (nice to hear from you, Mr. President—only next time, don’t phone during dinner, okay?) all the way up to 30 minutes before the polls closed.
(Lot of good all that money you spent, Governor Corzine, on commercials talking about an opponent who “throws his weight around.” All it did was a) make people wonder what you actually did; b) tick off the thousands who, like your opponent, have weight problems; c) remind others of your own arrogance that led you to order your driver way, way over the speed limit, endangering others as well as yourself; and d) convince these wavering voters that while Chris Christie might be a fat man, you are a fat cat, and the election ain’t over till the fat man wins.
I’m so glad the elections are over, aren’t you? I had almost gotten accustomed to the nonstop ads for the New Jersey gubernatorial and New York mayoralty races when I was hit with a ton of robocalls (nice to hear from you, Mr. President—only next time, don’t phone during dinner, okay?) all the way up to 30 minutes before the polls closed.
(Lot of good all that money you spent, Governor Corzine, on commercials talking about an opponent who “throws his weight around.” All it did was a) make people wonder what you actually did; b) tick off the thousands who, like your opponent, have weight problems; c) remind others of your own arrogance that led you to order your driver way, way over the speed limit, endangering others as well as yourself; and d) convince these wavering voters that while Chris Christie might be a fat man, you are a fat cat, and the election ain’t over till the fat man wins.
As for you, Mr. Christie: I couldn't vote for you, because I refuse to reward a candidate whose commercials reek of the evil of banality. Oh, did I tell you I'm looking forward to beating the crap out of you, metaphorically speaking, for the next four years?)
And when I stepped outside my house I found, scattered all over the sidewalk, a batch of brochures from candidates who love to extol their environmental records. (How litterbugging—not to mention the carbon footprint left by printing more expensive brochures than they’ll ever distribute—contributes to all of this, they don’t say.)
What would Will Rogers--born on this date in 1879--make of all of this? It’s as hard to imagine his style of nonpartisan but pointed political humor today as it is to conceive of someone with so much influence in so many different forms of media. Unlike myself, he wouldn’t have celebrated the last harrumph of preening politicos—he called politics “the best show on earth.”
Just think—he started out as a high-school kid who dropped out to become a cowboy, only to turn his hand, over the course of a career that now looks sadly abbreviated, to:
* Entertaining audiences at Wild West shows with rope tricks dazzling enough to put him into the Guinness Book of World Records.
And when I stepped outside my house I found, scattered all over the sidewalk, a batch of brochures from candidates who love to extol their environmental records. (How litterbugging—not to mention the carbon footprint left by printing more expensive brochures than they’ll ever distribute—contributes to all of this, they don’t say.)
What would Will Rogers--born on this date in 1879--make of all of this? It’s as hard to imagine his style of nonpartisan but pointed political humor today as it is to conceive of someone with so much influence in so many different forms of media. Unlike myself, he wouldn’t have celebrated the last harrumph of preening politicos—he called politics “the best show on earth.”
Just think—he started out as a high-school kid who dropped out to become a cowboy, only to turn his hand, over the course of a career that now looks sadly abbreviated, to:
* Entertaining audiences at Wild West shows with rope tricks dazzling enough to put him into the Guinness Book of World Records.
* Transitioning from lassoing to crackerbarrel philosophizing.
* Writing a column read by 40 million people.
* Achieving equal popularity with his radio broadcasts.
* Becoming a star of more than 70 silent and talking pictures, so well-loved that he was voted the most popular male actor in Hollywood in 1934.
One year later, on a flight to Alaska with aviator Wiley Post, Rogers died in a plane crash. President Franklin Roosevelt—who, like the Republican Calvin Coolidge, ended up a friend of the man who liked to tease him so much—spoke for many:
“His humor and his comments were always kind. His was no biting sarcasm that hurt the highest or the lowest of his fellow citizens. When he wanted people to laugh out loud, he used the methods of pure fun. And when he wanted to make a point for the good of mankind, he used the kind of gentle irony that left no scars behind it.”
Tell me, which comic could you say that about nowadays?
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