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Archived Issue
Thursday, January 20, 2005
ISSUE #352
Inauguration speech leaves Will in a pickle

# 352, January 20, 2005

TOLEDO, Ohio:  It’s inauguration day in Washington. Four years ago today I was in Iowa to speak to a Cattlemen’s banquet, and those folks’ favorite line from his 2001 speech was, “The steaks for America are never small.” That’s what they heard him say, and I didn’t have the heart to tell ’em what he really said was ‘stakes’.

Today I’m speaking to a different breed of farmers, at the Ohio Fruit and Vegetable Growers Congress. I listened rather closely to see if the President would say anything these apple polishers and sweet corn pickers might find amusing, perhaps he would lay out a plan to “squash the terrorists”. But, no, he let me down, and I’ve got to come up with my own jokes.

Once again he thrilled the old rancher’s when he said he wanted to “give every American a steak (stake) in the future”.

When he proclaimed, “no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave,” the Democrats applauded. They don’t want to be a slave to the Republicans, and they claim he isn’t fit to be a master.

President Bush laid out a promise of liberty and freedom throughout the world. And he appeared to guarantee our help to anyone that wants it. He said “freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places.” Well, I guarantee you these farmers will help erase the hunger if he can get Mr. Edison to supply the light.

Enough of this foolishness. If you haven’t read the full script of the speech go find a copy. For Lord’s sake, don’t just listen to what the so-called analysts or comedians say about it.

Historic quotes from Will Rogers: (on Inaugurations…, and freedom)

“(President Franklin Roosevelt) is a fast worker. He was inaugurated at noon in Washington, and they started the inaugural parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, and before it got half way down there, he’d closed every bank in the United States.

Now a Republican woulda never thought of a thing like that. No, no, he’d of let the depositors close it. And mind you , Mr. Roosevelt was just two days ahead of the depositors himself.” Radio broadcast, April 30, 1933

“Well, all of the papers have been full of the (Calvin Coolidge) inauguration, commenting on the simplicity of it, some of them for and others against…. I don’t think you can stir up a whole lot of excitement and get 110,000,000 people het up over a man getting up out of his seat, and sitting down in the same seat again. If it was a new man it would have been different…. But here is a guy who just raises up and bows and sits down, and the city of Washington feels hurt that the entire mortgage-bearing people of the United States were not there to see it.” WA #117, March 8, 1925

“I am in favor of giving the Philippines their freedom and then us go under their protectorate. That’s the only chance I see of us maybe getting an improvement in the government.” DT #1700, Jan. 4, 1932

“The Philippines are voting on whether they want freedom or not. They were in favor of it till they sent a commission over here and saw what it was. Now they are in doubt.” DT #2416, May 1, 1934

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