I'm Back for More Cash

by Tony Kornheiser

  Sheen’s president is always very forceful; he knows what he thinks. Unlike Bush, who seems to be in a perpetual fog, like he’s trying to figure out how to pronounce “Dahomey” and use it in a sentence other than “Gimme a gin and tonic, and give Dahomeys whatever they want.”

  It’s distressing when your choices for president are so uninspiring. Perhaps that’s why in its current issue American Journalism Review asked a panel of respected journalists: “Which journalist would you like to see run for president?”

  I won’t bore you with the pathetic choices, but a genius, Ken Fuson of the Des Moines Register, said the following: “My pick for president is Tony Kornheiser. He writes columns. He hosts a popular sports radio show. He appears on ESPN’s Sports Reporters show. He can write sad. He can write funny. He can go short. He can go long. And he golfs! The future of the free world would be safe in his hands.”

  Modesty forbids me from saying anything other than: “Damn right.”

  A Rhyming Shame

  For years now, I have phoned in my last column of the year by stealing everybody else’s jokes. (You give and give all year long; what’s wrong with coasting a little at the end?)

  But even I can’t justify doing that anymore. All jokes are Internet jokes nowadays. It’s gotten to the depressing point where you don’t have to be a licensed professional humorist to steal jokes. Any freakin’ amateur with a laptop can do it.

  I gave considerable thought to how I could still produce a column that required no thought whatsoever. I toyed with the idea of simply presenting punch lines from old favorites.

  Like: “Do I know it? Madam, I wrote it!”

  God, that joke cracks me up.

  But I decided against that, because, strange as it sounds, not everyone is familiar with such classic lines as: “Now hold on, sometimes a good sheep will do that.”

  So in looking for one good joke to tell, I decided to again tell the story of the biggest joke of the year 2000: No, not John Travolta’s ludicrous Battlefield Earth, although that’s way up there. It’s the presidential election, stupid.

  (And for some reason, it came to me in the form of an epic poem.)

  Maestro, if you will …

  The Florida Sec’y of State,

  Ms. Harris, whose friends call her Kate.

  Eye shadows she gathered,

  Her peepers she slathered,

  To certify Bush by said date.

  And that was the start of it all.

  When Kate left her job at the mall

  To do her sworn duty,

  This Junior League beauty,

  Who craved an inaugural ball.

  ’Twas Florida that was the site,

  Of the bitter electoral fight.

  The anchors descended,

  CNN never ended,

  Until Greenfield bid Greta good night.

  It relentlessly kept us on hold.

  Constitutional scholars were polled.

  Floyd Abrams, Jeff Toobin.

  (How I longed for a Reuben,

  And a couple of beers that were cold.)

  There was Albert, the Prince of all Gore,

  His undoing, his penchant to bore.

  George Bush played the foil,

  And developed a boil,

  Wore a bandage that could cover a floor!

  Those butterfly ballots, egad!

  Machine counts were all breaking bad.

  It’s Palm Beach Gore needed,

  His advisers conceded.

  “You must count and then recount the chad.”

  Bush trotted out trusty Jim Baker,

  Who accused Gore of plotting a caper.

  “He will count till he wins!

  “Do not let this begin!

  “Think of Poppy! There’s so much at stake here.”

  Gore won lawsuits, and Bush won some others.

  (Although Bush got squadoosh from his brother.)

  Bush’s best hired gun

  Was a Democrat’s son.

  Barry Richards, that’s one mother-%%$@!*!

  Theodore Olson and foe David Boies.

  Both presented their cases with poise.

  To Judge N. Sanders Sauls,

  (Who’s got a big pair of … um, gall!)

  As my rabbi said, “What’s with those goys?”

  But the Gator high court went with Gore.

  And Bill Daley let out such a roar.

  (Richard J. would be proud

  Done a jig in his shroud.)

  Tipper looked for some champagne to pour.

  Karen Hughes cried the court did Bush wrong.

  Ari Fleischer sang the same song.

  Dick Cheney said little;

  He had tubes in his middle.

  From his ranch Bush said, “I’m gonna kill Jeb.”

  No! No! He said, “My faith is still strong.”

  (Yeah, that’s it.)

  All the way up the ladder it climbed.

  To the U.S. Supremes, who were primed.

  Souter, Breyer, and Stevens,

  Day O’Connor and even

  Chief Rehnquist, who’s out of his mind.

  Scalia, of course, took the lead.

  He said, “Nobody messes with me.”

  Clarence Thomas said zippo,

  Not even a quippo.

  It’s like he was catching some z’s.

  The majority had to be five.

  But when would the verdict arrive?

  Rather, Brokaw, and Koppel

  Feared the awful debacle:

  They’d announce it on Larry King Live!

  They ultimately called it for Bush

  (Whose brain I’ve described as soft mush).

  The recount was ended.

  That’s how Bush ascended

  Minus an actual putsch.

  Bush met Clinton, and then met with Al.

  It was tense; they are hardly good pals.

  Gore had partied till dawn,

  His eyes red, his face drawn.

  In Spain they’d say Al was muy mal.

  And now soon they’ll inaugurate George.

  A presidency somehow to forge.

  I don’t want to sound bitter,

  But all things considered,

  We’d be better off with Victor Borge.

  Stupes to Conquer

  It has recently come to my attention that George W. Bush is the president of the United States. Apparently, Bush has been in office for months! You could have knocked me over with a feather. I was still on the edge of my seat, awaiting the results of the tense recount in Florida.

  Guess I fell asleep.

  It wasn’t only me, apparently. It seems to have also just dawned on the American people that George W. Bush is actually president. (Well come on, nobody looked up from Survivor! And then there was the Friends wedding. And then Sex and the City came back on. How much information can they expect us to absorb?) In recent days Bush’s approval rating has plunged like one of J-Lo’s Grammy necklines. Bush is down eight points in a month. Bulletin to the President of the United States: This ain’t T-ball, pal. In real life, they do keep score.

  Republican strategists (and congratulations to those of you who screamed out, “Oxymoron!”) believe that Bush’s decline in popularity can be directly linked to the growing awareness that he is president. Bush was at the height of his popularity when he was being confused with George Bush, W’s father; Jeb Bush, W’s brother; and Rosebush, W’s boyhood sled.

  As always, Bush’s greatest hope lies in the American people, the majority of whom is dumber than a bucket of hair. Despite the growing numbers of people who “can pick Bush out of a lineup,” in a recent national survey only 28 percent of respondents knew “Bush” was president; 24 percent said “the other guy, the guy with those stupid alpha-male open-collar shirts,” was president; a surprisingly high 16 percent identified Jim Jeffords as president, but many explained that Jeffords recently resigned the office “to go back to Vermont and run a Ben & Jerry’s.”
(Oh, you think Americans aren’t that stupid? Well, a New York Times story about the movie Pearl Harbor quoted opinions on the real Pearl Harbor offered by Americans on The Tonight Show that bear repeating: “It was in 19, like, 67. The Chinese people invaded America. Didn’t they?” … “It was bombed. By the Hawaiians. I think the Hawaiians won.” … “It started World War II. In 1924.” The scary thing is, I think I recognize my daughter in that group.)

  It’s been pretty much straight downhill for Bush since being appointed president by Big Nino “Knuckles” Scalia. Here are the highlights:

  1. Life savings were lost as the stock market cratered.

  2. Life savings were lost as gas prices soared.

  3. Our spy plane is being sent back to us in 4 million easy-to-assemble jigsaw pieces.

  4. Republicans lost control of the Senate.

  Gosh, Tony, the Republicans must feel awful about numbers 1, 2, and 3.

  You are the weakest link. Good-bye.

  Republicans aren’t concerned with people who lose their life savings; Republicans don’t need life savings—they have equity. Nothing that happens to the economy can hurt Republicans. It’s essentially a question of whether in any given administration they are merely “disgustingly rich” or “have more money than God.” Nor do Republicans care about reassembling spy planes. That is labor. Republicans are management.

  Ah, but losing control of the Senate. That stings. Because that means a loss of committee chairmanship, and with the loss of chairmanship comes a loss of limousines and office space. Now the Republicans don’t have the corner offices, and they are freakin’ steamed. They hate Jim Jeffords like Firestone hates Ford. Like Philip Morris hates juries.

  Trent “Thanks-a” Lott in particular hates Jeffords. Lott is in lock-and-load position over Jeffords’s defection, since that bumped Lott from “Majority” to “Minority” leader. So here’s Lott, in need of intravenous Prozac, saying that Jeffords taking a walk away from the party was “a coup of one that subverted the will of the American voters who elected a Republican majority.”

  Excuse me? What happened to the will of the American voters who gave more popular votes to Al Gore than to George Bush? What do they have to show for it, Trent, besides T-ball on the South Lawn? Or didn’t you read the report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights that said Florida’s conduct in the presidential election was marked by “injustice, ineptitude, and inefficiency”? And that was just in the application of eye makeup.

  And if it wasn’t bad enough that Jeffords left, John “I’m Gonna Get You, Sucka” McCain is on the verge of declaring himself a free agent. Bush could be down two in a month. You know what they do in baseball to pitchers who can’t hold a lead?… Actually, they pay them about $4 million a year. But that’s another column.

  On the plus side, Bush looks great. He’s working out two and three times a day. He’s the first president who, in listing priorities for his administration, began with: Run seven-minute miles and bench-press two hundred pounds. Bush gets up in the morning, hops on a treadmill, and memorizes what Uncle Dick has written out for him. It’s like being Peter Jennings, without the European tailoring. It takes all kinds, doesn’t it? Bush is pumping iron. God knows what the guy before him was pumping.

  W’s Theme Song: “Heart and Soul”

  Normally, I don’t go back to the same well week after week, so George Bush should be safe for a while. But did you see what Bush said after his recent meeting with Russia’s President Vladimir “Ras” Putin? Bush met with Putin for ninety minutes and declared the former KGB agent a righteous dude. Bush explained: “I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

  See, right there is proof of the high quality of a Yale education. All Bush needed was ninety minutes to go metaphysical. Imagine if he’d hung out with Putin the whole afternoon. We all might be levitating. What’s next, the Vulcan Mind Meld?

  I’m delighted Bush could peer into Putin’s soul. Maybe he was like Woody Allen, who said he was once charged with plagiarism on a metaphysics exam because he’d peered into the soul of the student next to him.

  I’m curious about the size of Putin’s soul. How much soul does he have? More than, say, Sam and Dave? More than Luther Vandross? Barry White? As a kid growing up in the Soviet Union, did his homeys say to Vladimir, “What it is, bro”?

  (I interrupt this column to bring you this item. I quote from the wire service account: “Viagra has been banned from greyhound racing in Ireland after reports that it can make dogs run faster by speeding up their heart rate.” Like my friend Denis says, man, if they catch that rabbit now, watch out!)

  I hope I’m not the only one besides Crazy Ol’ Jesse Helms who finds it uncomfortable that the president of our United States meets with an elite commie spy for an hour and a half, and pronounces him “honest, straightforward, and trustworthy.” (Is Bush a fish or what? Half an hour with Robert Hanssen, and Bush would probably make him Postmaster General.)

  I mean, it’s one thing for Bush to get out of a meeting with Putin and say, “I met with Mr. Putin, and we reached consensus on a wide range of aims. True, we still have some serious cultural issues to bridge. Like that hideous beet soup the Russkies eat. One swallow of that slop and I’m all over Mr. Putin like my daddy was all over the prime minister of Japan a few years back. But on a personal level, Vlad’s my dawg; ya know what I’m sayin’, boyyyyyee.”

  But for Bush to say, “I was able to get a sense of his soul.” Excuse me, who did we elect president, Shirley MacLaine?

  Of course, the president wasn’t the only one with unexpected insight this week. A check of Barbra Streisand’s Web site revealed America’s Diva is urging Californians to conserve energy by hanging their wash out to dry on a clothesline.

  Let me ask you something: You think Barbra Streisand hangs her wash on a clothesline?

  Are you crazy?

  Babs pinning up bras and panties? With those nails? Bite your tongue.

  She has people (who need people) to do her wash. (They’re the luckiest people in the world.) The closest Babs ever gets to a line of clothes is Versace. Barbra Streisand couldn’t find the washing machine in her own house without a Coast Guard search-and-rescue operation. She thinks All Temperature Cheer is what she gets when she steps onstage at Caesars Palace when the AC is on the blink.

  Barbra probably hasn’t done a load of wash in thirty years. It’s a misty watercolor memory of the way she was. I’m betting it’s in the prenup that James Brolin does her wash. That’s why he’s hawking Flex-A-Min, for when his muscles ache from ironing and folding. Seriously, what else is he doing? It’s not like when Sir Laurence Olivier died, Marlon Brando stood up and said, “Don’t worry, we’ve still got Jimmy Brolin.”

  Come on, close your eyes and imagine Barbra Streisand measuring the liquid Tide, hahaha. This is how Babs saves energy on her laundry: She wears something once, then throws it away.

  Like these famous actresses in Malibu would hang their wash out on a line to dry. Like they’d string the clothesline between houses. Like one day Babs will lean out her window and call to Cher, “Hey, girlfriend, your wash looks great! Your thongs look so bright. What’s your secret? How do you get your whites so white? And your plumage so, um, plumey?”

  Like that’ll happen.

  If word got out that babes like Angelina Jolie and Catherine Zeta-Jones were hanging their wash out to dry? It would give new meaning to the phrase “panty raid.” They’d have to post an -ARMED RESPONSE sign next to the Clorox.

  The gall of Barbra Streisand to call on her fellow Californians to hang their wash on a line when the only thing she knows about manual labor is that “manual” sounds like the name of her gardener. This from a woman who allegedly had it written into her performance contract in Las Vegas that the help couldn’t look at her when she walked by; they had to avert their eyes. Who is she, Medusa?

  I love Babs’s Web site. She posts her political tracts, like “Dick Cheney’s Record,” “Last-Minute Thoughts Before
the Election,” and “Ten Republicans I Would Boink Even Though They Vote to Make Us Dependent on Fossil Fuel.” (Okay, I made that one up.) But she actually does have political tracts. In “A Call to Conserve,” she talks about how to reduce energy consumption: “Only run your dishwasher when it is fully loaded and air-dry your dishes instead of using the dry cycle. Turn off appliances and lights when they are not in use … seal and caulk doors and windows that leak.” What kind of language is that? Is Barbra Streisand channeling the Maytag repairman?

  By the way, Babs’s Web site also has signature stuff you can buy: Streisand soup mugs, with her name in script; limited edition Streisand champagne; Babs’s portrait in Lucite.

  I’m holding out for a “Presidential Edition” glimpse of her soul.

  Bill, Monica, and a Shooting Starr

  Shooting Starr

  If I understand the Whitewater investigation correctly, Kenneth Starr is asking women in Arkansas if they’ve had sex with Bill Clinton. At press time, it was not clear if he was asking all women in Arkansas, or if he was working from some sort of list.

  I thought Whitewater was about banking, not boinking.

  (Actually, I am a little vague on the details of Whitewater. Who wouldn’t be? It’s either a Ponzi scheme or a log flume ride at a theme park. The investigation seems to have been going on for a very long time with very little progress, like that TV show Step by Step, with Suzanne Somers and Patrick Duffy.)

  Have you been following this thing? There are several disturbing factors:

  1. Starr’s head looks exactly like a lightbulb. (How many presidents does it take to change a lightbulb? None. The lightbulb is totally independent, and beyond the reach of presidents.)