Brouhaha in Beantown
The first Presidential debate—known to those in the political know
as the “Brouhaha in Beantown”—is now over.
As of this writing, the day after the debate, not a lot of people
seem to have changed their minds about their chosen candidates, and the
undecideds still seem to be wavering between the two. Everyone seems to have
seen what they wanted to see. Those who wanted to see a finger-pointing,
overbearing Al Gore had plenty of opportunities. Those who wanted to paint Bush as an
intellectual lightweight got to seize on Dubbya’s apparent mockery of Al
Gore for using math, or “fuzzy numbers”, to use the term Bush uses to
refer to any statistic whatsoever.
There were supposed to be strict rules for the debates. Each
candidate was supposed to have a limited time to respond to carefully picked
questions by PBS’s Jim Lehrer. The candidates were not supposed to
question one another or directly address one another. Those rules lasted a
quick thirty seconds. Lehrer lost control of the candidates faster than a
rookie junior high school teacher.
The most unfair thing about the debates was, of course, the absence
of candidates beyond the Big
Two. No Ralph Nader, no Pat Buchanan, and, most shockingly, no mention of
your Humble Columnist. And they call this a democracy.
I have something, however, the other left-out losers don’t have. I
have a newspaper column. So here is my interpretation of how the debate
should have gone, with me there:
LEHRER: We’re looking
at a sizable projected budget surplus. One of the biggest issues facing the
nation right now is health care for seniors…
ME: Well, Jim, I know a
guy in the audience named Harold Armbruster. Harold’s a twenty-three year
old convenience-store clerk who still lives with his Mom. And Harold doesn’t
give a rat’s patootie about health care for seniors. My administration
will speak for the Harold Armbrusters.
LEHRER: So you have no
proposals for Medicare?
ME: Don’t put words in
my mouth, Jim. think that we can combine this issue with another one facing
the country, that of military readiness. As you know, we have a choice
between spending the budget surplus on increasing military readiness and
using it to prop up Medicare’s promise of health care for seniors. I
propose a plan that will combine the military health care system with
Medicare.
LEHRER: You don’t mean…
ME: Yes, Jim, I propose
that we draft seniors into the
military.
GORE: You can’t be
serious.
ME: Serious as a heart
attack, Al…can I call you Al?
GORE: No.
ME: I’ve read that Tom
Brokaw book about the Greatest Generation. Those old folks still have a lot
of fight left in ‘em. Just try to get in front of an old guy in line at
Bojangles and you’ll see what I mean.
LEHRER: Ohhhhh…kay.
Would you try to overturn the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill RU-486?
ME: Not only would I
back the approval of RU-486, I want it provided for free to all seniors.
LEHRER:
How would you keep oil prices from
going out of control?
ME: I want to grant
every American the right to develop their own sources of energy, including
tax incentives for ordinary Americans who want the right to drill for oil in
their own backyards. I would do away with rules and regulations regulating
backyard drilling. I want to grant
all Americans the right to set up garage refineries. Especially seniors.
LEHRER:
The next President may get to make several nominations for Supreme
Court justices. Should a voter assume that all of your judicial appointments
will be pro-life or pro-choice?
ME: Hold on a minute,
Jim, I think there’s something wrong with the Vice President. He seems to
be having trouble breathing.
GORE:
I was giving an exasperated sigh. See? It says here on my briefing
card: “Exasperated sigh.”
ME: Well, you’re
overdoing it. Cut it out.
LEHRER: I think we need
to move on. What would you, as President, do to guarantee the compliance of
Slobodan Milosevic with the
result of the recent elections in Yugoslavia?
ME:
First, I want to hear Mr. Bush pronounce the name of the guy that
beat Milosovic in the Yugoslavian election.
BUSH: Ahh…Castoodic..Vishnuea…ah,
rats!
ME:
Hee-hee!
LEHRER: Okay, granted,
that was pretty amusing to watch. Next question.
Are there issues of character that separate you from your opponents?
ME: Well, I’ll say
this about my opponents. They love their families. And I can relate to that
because I love their families, too. Especially Karenna. I mean, rrrrROWR.
GORE: What do you mean
by that? You take that back, you…
LEHRER: Mr. Vice
President! Mr. Vice President!
Okay, on reflection, it’s
probably better that I wasn’t there.
Dusty Rhoades is a
lawyer now practicing in Aberdeen, who has a member of Karenna Gore Schiff’s
Secret Service detail shadowing him at all times.
OUR
GRACIOUS HOST (BOOKS-N-BYTES)
COPYRIGHT 2000 BY JERRY D. RHOADES, JR.