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Archived Issue
Friday, January 25, 2008
ISSUE #487
#487, January 25, 2008

Special edition by an old columnist

(Randall is on vacation this week, so Will Rogers is filling in. These little Historical tidbits should help prepare you to endure the onslaught of Primaries, interrupted momentarily by the State of the Union address and the Super Bowl.)

Being serious or being a good fellow has got nothing to do with running this country. If the breaks are with you, you could be a laughing hyena and still have a great administration.

Politics is the best show in America. I love animals and I love politicians. I like to watch both of ’em at play, either back home in their native state, or after they’ve been captured and sent to a zoo, or to Washington.

No voter is going to do anything that a politician thinks he will do (this year). The way most people feel they would like to vote against all of ’em if it was possible.

The two greatest traits to recommend the Democrats is optimism and humor. You’ve got to be an optimist to be a Democrat, and you’ve got to be a humorist to stay one.

Democrats never agree on anything, that’s why they’re Democrats. If they agreed with each other, they would be Republicans.

The Democrats and the Republicans are equally corrupt—it’s only in the amount where the Republicans excel.

Republicans want a candidate that can lend dignity to the office. Democrats want one that will lend money.

A Republican moves slowly. They are what we call conservatives. A conservative is a man who has plenty of money and doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t always have plenty of money. A Democrat is a fellow who never had any, but doesn’t see any reason why he shouldn’t have some.

You know how Congress is. They’ll vote for anything if the thing they vote for will turn around and vote for them.

Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously, and the politicians as a joke, when it used to be vice versa.

Many a politician wishes there was a law to burn old records.

Our president delivered his State of the Union message to Congress. That is one of the things his contract calls for — to tell Congress the condition of the country. This message, as I say, is to Congress. The rest of the people know the condition of the country, for they live in it, but Congress has no idea what is going on in America, so the president has to tell ‘em.

A president just can’t make much showing against Congress. They lay awake nights, thinking up things to be against the president on.

You know Lincoln’s famous remark about “God must have loved the common people, because he made so many of them?” Well, you are not going to get people’s votes nowadays by calling ‘em common. Lincoln might have said it, but I bet it was not until after he was elected.

I like to make little jokes and kid about the Senators. They are a kind of a never ending source of amusement, amazement, and discouragement. But the rascals, when you meet ’em face to face and know ’em, they are mighty nice fellows. It must be something in the office that makes ’em so ornery sometimes. When you see what they do officially you want to shoot ’em, but when one looks at you and grins so innocently, why you kinder want to kiss him.

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