SMALL FAVORS
Ivins, Molly
SMALL FAVORS Molly Ivins Duke-Outs at the Pet Clubs Well, buckaroos, we're going to have more fun than the law allows down here in Texas this fall. Talk about a fistfight in the...
...We all do what Bush does—we tangle our words, we say the wrong thing, we make awful boners—and we all dread doing it in public...
...We have a President who talks about "welfare queens in designer jeans" and who asked, "Is it news that some fellow out in South Succotash someplace has just been laid off...
...One of the most bizarre developments at the Democratic Convention in Atlanta was the institutionalization of the practice of mixing film celebrity and politics...
...Best quote of the Convention: from the Dukakis staffer who said, "This convention will be organized, controlled, and short—just like the candidate...
...Texans-by-choice are just as good as Texans-by-birth in my book...
...Real Texans do not wear blue slacks with little green whales all over them...
...But we do have some minimal standards for citizenship...
...But a depressing amount of what passes for humor in the Reagan era has been of this genre...
...I've never cared for the notion of making Texanhood exclusive...
...So even when we laugh at Bush, we secretly identify with him...
...But the Democratic Party held daily "celebrity briefings" for such luminaries as Ally Sheedy, Rob Lowe, Justine Bateman, Mar-got Kidder, and Morgan Fairchild...
...From there, it was but a short step to winding up with the star of Bedtime for Bonzo as President of the United States...
...But no, according to the Celebrity Fact for the Day on Tuesday at the Democratic Convention, the first time celluloid glitz was harnessed for political purposes was in 1932, when Louis B. Mayer organized "Hollywood for Hoover...
...The home-boy factor is now even-steven, with a quasi-Texan leading the Republican ticket and the genuine article as Numero Two-o on the Democratic side...
...Since when is this a sin...
...It is not too much to ask that our politicians have enough wit and passion to keep us awake...
...My friends, we are the posterity of Thomas Jefferson, of Thomas Paine, of Daniel Webster...
...There's no point in objecting to people twitting Bush: All politicians are in a free-fire zone and he's a big boy...
...Each actor and actress was assigned an issue about which he or she was said to be able to converse knowledgeably and even be interviewed...
...I believe it's un-Texian to hold foreign birth against 'em...
...The only no-no in humor is a simple rule: Don't kick cripples...
...Excitement, we like to call him—face it, the man has got no Elvis to him...
...Molly Ivins, a columnist for the Dallas Times Herald, appears in this space every month...
...It's true he rolled over his last opponent with 59 per cent of the vote, but the man who deserves the credit for that was his opponent, a right-wing Republican Congressman named Jim Collins who ran a series of television ads starring himself that ended with the question, "Say, where is Nicaragua...
...George Bush has a hard time passing...
...The Republicans are now mounting a concerted effort (they used to call this "the shovel brigade") to convince people it's somehow cruel and in bad taste to make fun of George Bush...
...If Republicans had any sense—always a chancy hypothetic—they'd make up Bush lines and jokes of their own, with affection...
...As for Lloyd Bentsen—Mr...
...Talk about a fistfight in the whorehouse—there'll be duke-outs at the Pet Clubs (that's petroleum) all over the state...
...Played right, it could be a sympathetic trait...
...They say Bentsen was picked because of his famous political machine...
...Heh, heh...
...It's quite possible his incurable tendency to make a bit of a fool of himself could become an asset...
...One of his knee-slappers was, "We were told four years ago that seventeen million people went to bed hungry every night...
...Well, that was probably true—they were all on a diet...
...Actually, it's irresistible...
...Tom Hayden, who is married to Jane Fonda, counted as a celebrity-in-law...
...One luckless trouper got "Water...
...edified the nation by hugging that sweet, embraceable Richard Nixon at the 1972 Republican Convention...
...Is Michael Dukakis himself not known as Zorba the Clerk...
...Real Texans do not refer to trouble as "deep doo-doo...
...I used to think the habit of showcasing superannuated movie stars was a Republican idiosyncrasy, designed to further befuddle the public...
...Fairchild, a noted thespian, lent credibility to her political presence by wearing a dress described in the daily pool report as "sleeveless, backless, damn near frontless, and almost bottomless...
...You may think all this started with the time Sammy Davis Jr...
Vol. 52 • September 1988 • No. 9
