# 306, January 22, 2004

COLUMBUS: I’ve been laying low since those Iowa votes came in Monday night. My Iowa no-till farmers might have misled you on Dick Gephardt, but it ain’t their fault. I am convinced there’s a hoard of you Gephardt voters out there who figured he would win in a romp, so why go out on a cold night just to vote. That’s what knocked him out.

But those farmers had Dean pegged. See, if you leave out Gephardt, it was Kerry that came out on top in our little poll, with Edwards and Clark next. Now that’s amazing. General Clark never even set foot in Iowa. The Army don’t hardly recognize the state; they only have two forts. That’s Fort Madison and Fort Dodge, and they’re not really forts, just towns. So if the General wants to score well in New Hampshire, he should get out quick, and maybe the voters will forget he was there and vote for him accidently.

Senator Kerry is feeling confident, looking good. He survived the New Hampshire debate tonight and his only worry is all those new residents of New Hampshire, the ones that moved there from Massachusetts to get away from Massachusetts.

Iowa is ready for a breather. They need some rest before a herd of 2008 Republican candidates starts stampeding through the state. Next Wednesday.

If it ain’t politics on television, it’s trials. We got so many trials going on… Martha Stewart in New York, Michael Jackson in Los Angeles, Kobe in Colorado, Scott Peterson in Modesto. Did you see where that Enron couple in Houston pleaded guilty? They saw all the competition, figured nobody is going to watch us in court, and rather than go unrecognized they surrendered even if it did cost them $29 million.

The Peterson trial got moved out of Modesto. The judge said he was looking for a town with 12 people with absolutely no knowledge of anything. That’s the only requirement. He found one near San Francisco, but I thought sure he would’ve picked Hollywood. In Hollywood they would only have to find 9 more jurors ’cause everybody knows they already got three that meet his criteria: Paris Hilton, Michael Moore and Jessica Simpson.

With all this blather, there was some good news this week. All those McDonalds burgers and fries you ate over the years have paid dividends. It turns out that Ray and Joan Kroc saved up some of the dough you dropped at the golden arches, and they left a tidy sum to the Salvation Army: $1.5 Billion. If we can match that in the kettles next Christmas what a great time it will be for a great organization.

Historic quote from Will Rogers:

“A comedian is not supposed to be serious nor to know much. As long as he is silly enough to get laughs, why, people let it go at that. But I claim you have to have a serious streak in you or you can’t see the funny side in the other fellow. Last Sunday night a young girl [Rheba Crawford] who had made a big hit in the Salvation Army preaching on the street in New York decided to go out and give religious lectures on her own. So on her first appearance I was asked by her to introduce her. She said she would rather have me than a preacher, or a politician, or any one else. Well, I could understand being picked in preference to a politician, as that is one class us comedians have it on for public respect, but to be chosen in preference to a preacher was something new and novel. The meeting was held in a theater, as you have to fool some New Yorkers to get them in to hear a sermon. Well, it took no great stretch of imagination to say something good for the Salvation Army.” WA #13, March 11, 1923