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Secondhand Smoke and Mirrors, Rearview

The Amazing Words of The World According to Bob Dole ...

It's all done with smoke and mirrors, you know, just smoke and mirrors ... and he does it his own way, with secondhand smoke and rearview mirrors [credit Al Gore with the title!]

Still On About That "Liberal Media":
"Now we know the liberal media isn't going to report any of this..." [Oct 24]
Bob, Bob, Bob.... as I said before, there is no liberal media. Lord knows, they let you get away with some of the most massive [not to mentioned documented] campaign finance violations in the history of the country. Real liberal. Oh yeah. Please come up with something else to yell about.

$1,261 Dollars More a Year Means Only One Parent Has to Work:
"[the tax cut means] you [do not] have one parent working for the family, and the other parent working to pay the taxes." [Oct 22]
Bob Dole actually seems to feel that an extra $1261 a year will "substantially reduce mortgage payments" (not where I live, Bob!), or finance a family vacation. He really feels that this tax cut will put enough money into a family that one parent could stop working. Well, hey, if any parent is working for $1200 a year, he's right. But even minimum wage is six times that.

Bill Clinton, the Last of the Liberals????:
"Bill Clinton is a closet liberal." [Sep 21] "He's still a liberal." [Sep 23]
Well, now, really. I mean.
If Bob Dole thinks Bill Clinton is a liberal, then it's pretty damned clear that he wouldn't know a liberal if one bit him on the butt (which, speaking as a liberal myself, I can say with some confidence is not likely to happen).
Let's find us some real liberals to inveigh against, shall we, Bob? Of course, I know why you can't: there are hardly any left. And if you accept what the media presents to us as "liberals" when they give us one of their "equal time" farces, then you might be fooled into thinking that Clinton is one. But take it from me, he's not, more's the pity.
You want to see real liberals., then go here.

family leave & the federal government:
"My view is, why should the federal government be getting into family leave? It ought to be left to employees or the states or the counties, and the federal government ought to be out of it. ... I believe in compassionate leave, if there is a birth or a death or there is something that happens in the family, obviously. But again I wonder about the long arm of the federal government." [Pittsburgh, Sep 7]
Let's look at that on a couple of levels. First, did he mean that leave "ought to be left to employees"? He couldn't have. I mean, what a concept. Responsible adults deciding whether they need leave or not? Some businesses out there actually make people keep timecards in quarter-hour installments. No, that has to be an error: either he misspoke or was misquoted. He had to mean the employers.
Which fits, of course: keep the feds out of it. Leave it to the employer, or the state, or (another wierdness) the county. Standard Dole/GOP idea. Keep the feds out of the boardroom.
So, "why should the federal government be getting into family leave?"[emphasis mine]. Why? How about becuase the employers won't do it? How about because until the feds got involved we didn't have it? How about because the employers will work you into the ground and then replace you if they're allowed to, paying you crap wages while they do it? How about because there are and have been only two ways workers in this country ever got anything from employers: if enough union men bled and died for it, or if the feds stepped in and made it mandatory.
On May 7, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said to the nation:
It is probably true that 90% of the cotton manufacturers of this country would agree tomorrow to eliminate starvation wages, would agree to stop long hours of employment, would agree to stop child labor, would agree to prevent an overproduction that would result in unsalable surpluses. But, my friends, what good is such an agreement of the 90% if the other 10% of the cotton manufacturers pay starvation wages and require long hours and employ children in their mills and turn out burdensome surpluses? The unfair 10% could produce goods so cheaply that the fair 90% would be compelled to meet the unfair conditions. And that is where government comes in.[emphasis mine]
Yes, indeed: that is where, and that is why. And although conditions today aren't anything like as bad as they were in 1933, you know for a fact that employers still have the upper hand. You got to have a job. Even more so, now that "welfare reform" is underway.
Bob Dole claims to rememberthe way America used to be. He wasn't an infant in 1933, he can remember this, he knows what it was like. The employer, the businessman, is not benevolent. The last decade or so has shown us that: if a business owner pays his employees when his factory burns to the ground rather than telling them "tough luck", he's a saint, an icon of virtue. Corporations downsize just to improve their bottom line for the stockholders. CEOs take huge bonuses at the same time they're laying of thousands of workers.
Thanks, Bob. But no thanks. We want, we need, the "long arm of the federal government" to stop the big businesses from trampling us back down into the dirt.

it just won't drift away:
"My view is, using drugs is wrong. You shouldn't use drugs. You shouldn't smoke cigarettes. Let's just throw them all out at the same time."
Oh, my gosh. Does Bob Dole mean it? Are cigarettes as bad as drugs? Does he plan to ban them? Go Clinton one further, not just regulate cigarettes but 'throw them out'?
Well, it sure sounded like it on the 28th of August in Ventura, California, when Bob Dole spoke at a small Christian school. But noo-- when asked if he'd meant what he said, he responded: "Oh, no. Come on, you know better than that."
Well, yes. I think we do. Too bad...but those tobacco dollars do override Bob Dole's secret opinions, don't they?

hatchets, and where to find them:
Al Gore remarked on Wednesday, 28 August, that Bob Dole had offered himself as a bridge to the past, but that Clinton was a bridge to the future. Thursday morning, Dole announced that he "expected nothing different from Al Gore" because "Al Gore was the hatchet man of the Democrat Party."
Gosh, it must be tough, when everytime you open your mouth you utter something that, if quoted by another, turns into a hatchet buried in your spine.....

on solving social problems, in his acceptance speech:
"The root cause of crime: Criminals."
Ooooo. Good one. And I bet the root cause of poverty is poor people. The root cause of homelessness is people without homes. Of joblessness, people without jobs. Of hunger, people who aren't eating. To such penetratingly percipient social commentary and planning, I can only say: Angels and ministers of grace, deliver us!

short pithy sayings from across the years: revelant of our man's mind and mindset
1993: "Gridlock is good. Gridlock was planned by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution."

often, rhetorically: "Who's gonna look at Section 2034, section B, subsection C of the code?"(describing how he uses the tax code to benefit his supporters ... yeah, the IRS he's gonna get rid of)

1982: "Corporate welfare" (a term he coined) is "indefensible in a year when the federal deficit will reach nearly $100 billion." And this: "Now we have to make sure that corporations pay taxes." And "What you don't want to do is let some amendment slip in that helps some big corporation." What a difference a presidential race makes!

1982: "When the PACs give money, they expect something in return other than good government."

1990: "It's totally unfair to force a vote that would put our party on record against civil rights." (Not unfair to be against them, mind, but to be forced to go on record as against them.)

1990: Saddam Hussein is "a good leader, a leader to whom the United States can talk." 1992: Saddam Hussein is "The Butcher of Baghdad". 1993: "I had no opinion" on Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War.

1993(?): "Money is the mother's milk of politics."

1979: Elizabeth Dole's blind trust is money that Bob is joint owner of, "common property." 1985: It's something that "I don't know anything about." What's the difference? It's whether, as in '79, the money is being illegally used if he doesn't, or, as in the 80s, if he does, have access to it.

1985: "The [congressional campaign financing] system cries for reform. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to try to achieve that." The Voting Record: Against Campaign Reform and PAC Reform in: 86, 87, 90, 91, 92 ... supported vetoes of passing legislation in 90-92 ...and filibustered to death measures in 93 and 94.

on violence in Hollywood movies, and on good taste, and putting audience numbers first:
"I liked it. We won, the end, leadership, America, good over evil. It's a good movie. Bring your family to, be proud of when you leave. It's about diversity in America and leadership."
It is Independence Day, a film Bob obviously feels real good about. This, despite his slamming Strip Tease because its main character is a single mother who dances naked to support her child, and the fact that one of the main characters in ID4 is exactly that same thing. And despite the millions and millions of people who die during it, and the almost overwhelming violence.
I guess Bob's joined the Arnold Schwarzenegger school of movie violence, except on the flip side: somebody once asked Arnold about the level of violence in his [then] new release, Total Recall. Yes, he said, it's pretty violent, that's why it got its rating. But, he asked, let me ask you: how many people died in Star Wars? The reporter guessed a kind of low number, then remember the fight scene at the end and upped his guess. No, said Arnold, it was billions. Billions? replied the reporter, that's not right. Yes, it is, said Arnold, they blew up an entire planet, remember?
Well, Arnold of course was making the point that violence clearly depicted at least stays with you, while off-screen violence, even horrendously genocidal violence, can pass you right by. Bob, on the other hand, seems to feel that talking about how many people got killed off-screen is okie-dokie, good stuff, fine for the kids.
As the little German soldier used to say on Laugh In: Interrrresting.... but stupid.
Anyway, Bob's forfeited his right to talk about how horrible Hollywood is, putting audiences and profits ahead of good taste and responsibility. He went on Don Imus's show. If he wants to, because Imus has such a huge audience, fine, go ahead, lots of people do. But having done so, never again have the face to lecture anyone else about putting numbers ahead of taste.

picking his audiences:
'My schedule was too busy.' 'My staff blew it.' 'Kweise Mfume is trying to set me up.' 'The NAACP is too liberal, and I'm seeking to speak to a group I can "relate to".'
These are Dole's reasons, in chronological order of his giving them, that he wouldn't address the NAACP. Since he has, since then, turned down an invitation to speak to the Disabled American Veterans, one is left to wonder just who this guy can "relate to" -- the Freemen, maybe?

on job opportunities:
"They took a survey and 90 percent of our corporate executives indicated that they are going to have jobs available and nobody is going to be there to apply because they don't have the skills. What's a CEO to do?"
Well, how about-- stop downsizing and start retraining?! How about plowing a few thousands of his millions in stock options into training programs?! How about treating his workers like people instead of "resouces"?!

on patriots & Iran-contra:
"I'm proud to say that my definition of a patriot is Caspar Wienberger ... Clair George ... Elliott Abrams."

on investigating opponents' staffers:
"We checked out a lot of [Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's] staff. We found out their political leanings, and we checked on their political contributions."

on gun control:
"So what I say, let's move, that we've moved beyond the debate, in my mind, over banning assault weapons. Sounds good. It's a nice sound bite. You can say it on television and everyone thinks they're safe. But we've got to move beound the sound bite, as somebody said. We've got to move beyond banning assault weapons, and instead of endlessly debating guns to ban we ought to be emphasizing what works."
Ahhh... 'moved past'. What exactly does that mean? Does that mean we aren't going to be able to win on this, no matter how much money the NRA gives us, so we aren't going to try, but we don't want to say so because we want to make everybody happy, including the NRA so they'll keep giving us money and the voters who actually preferred our original support of the bill to ban the things?

on reporters:
"I like to talk to the media. You, in the Senate, you can banter back and forth. Nobody takes it seriously. You go out there [in the Senate hallways] for a little stake-out, and they all go, 'Whadya say?' But here [on the campaign trail] when you say it, somebody is going to write it. I don't know, maybe it's because they don't know me or they don't, I don't know....So I say let's don't gamble."
Bob, Bob, Bob... you're running for the President of the United States. If Bob Dole says it, of course they will write it. Why is this simple little fact so hard for Bob Dole to understand?

on private and parochial schools:
They "reduce crime", "cut drug use" and "maybe families will stay together."
I see. Public schools are the cause of the whole problem. If every kid in America was in a private school, this would be Utopia.
Of course, the thing about private schools is, they don't have to accept all the kids. That's their thing. If a kid is poor, if he's a 'troublemaker', if she's a 'high risk', if he's bringing down their gpa and making them look bad to the other parents and the colleges, if they're just full.... tough luck, go to public school, kid.
What's Bob Dole's answer to that? Odd, he seems to have fallen silent.

on cigarettes:
Among the things that Bob Dole said to former Surgeon-General C. Everett Koop (while trying to explain what he meant by saying that cigarettes were "not necessarily" addictive) was this little gem: he personally discourages smoking and supports efforts to keep cigarettes away from children, he was against any federal efforts aimed at "regulating a legal product out of existence." [emphasis mine]

on domestic abuse:
"The failure of the welfare system" is to blame for domestic violence. "[Welfare] has a lot to do with domestic violence." Reforming welfare is "one way to address it for some people".
I have no comment on this, because the man didn't explain what he meant. Of course, it's obvious: he just wants to blame welfare (read: poor people, for which read: blacks & women) for yet one more thing; no one could seriously say that welfare has anything to do with domestic violence. Men beat women at all income levels.

on Haley Barbour
Haley Barbour is a wonderful RNC chairman; know why? "Anybody who can get $5 million worth of advertising without ever running a spot is the kind of guy we need right now!"
Well, this is true; Bob's running out of money. And Barbour sure as death did snooker the media into running that "commercial" [Stripes] everywhere: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN ran it for free because it was "news". Radios ran it. Newspapers talked about it. It was all over the country. And the RNC never paid anybody a penny.
And they never -- repeat, never-- did. 'Cause they never put it on as an ad.
Gotta love it. If you're an Elephant Head.

The Abortion Plank Tolerance Thing
Pardon me if I'm just a little puzzled by this, and not really happy. I can't quite imagine what "tolerance" actually means in this context.
"We intend to have a constitutional amendment making having an abortion the same thing as murder, a capital crime where there is capital punishment and a life without parole elsewhere. But we're tolerant of your dissenting opinion."
That'll do people in jail a hell of a lot of good, won't it, that Bob is tolerant of their opinion?

the Katie Couric episode
"Today", 2 July: Bob Dole Assails Katie Couric, Calls Koop 'Brainwashed', and MORE!
Okay, the point here isn't really whether Bob Dole was mean to poor little sweet Katie Couric--look, she's a television 'journalist', she can handle herself-- or that he said that Dr Koop was "brainwashed by the liberal media" (for one thing, there ain't no liberal media; I'm a liberal, I know liberals when I hear 'em and there aren't any in the media); it's that Dole can't seem to get used to the fact that people are going to ask him questions. That's the news here.

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	The Amazing Words of The World According to Bob Dole ...
	It's all done with smoke and mirrors, you know, just smoke and mirrors ... and he does it his own way, with secondhand smoke and rearview mirrors [credit Al Gore with the title!]

	Still On About That "Liberal Media":		"Now we know the liberal media isn't going to report any of this..." [Oct 24] Bob, Bob, Bob.... as I said before, there is no liberal media. Lord knows, they let you get away with some of the most massive [not to mentioned documented] campaign finance violations in the history of the country. Real liberal. Oh yeah. Please come up with something else to yell about.

	$1,261 Dollars More a Year Means Only One Parent Has to Work:		"[the tax cut means] you [do not] have one parent working for the family, and the other parent working to pay the taxes." [Oct 22] Bob Dole actually seems to feel that an extra $1261 a year will "substantially reduce mortgage payments" (not where I live, Bob!), or finance a family vacation. He really feels that this tax cut will put enough money into a family that one parent could stop working. Well, hey, if any parent is working for $1200 a year, he's right. But even minimum wage is six times that.

	Bill Clinton, the Last of the Liberals????:		"Bill Clinton is a closet liberal." [Sep 21] "He's still a liberal." [Sep 23] Well, now, really. I mean. If Bob Dole thinks Bill Clinton is a liberal, then it's pretty damned clear that he wouldn't know a liberal if one bit him on the butt (which, speaking as a liberal myself, I can say with some confidence is not likely to happen). Let's find us some real liberals to inveigh against, shall we, Bob? Of course, I know why you can't: there are hardly any left. And if you accept what the media presents to us as "liberals" when they give us one of their "equal time" farces, then you might be fooled into thinking that Clinton is one. But take it from me, he's not, more's the pity. You want to see real liberals., then go here.

	family leave & the federal government:		"My view is, why should the federal government be getting into family leave? It ought to be left to employees or the states or the counties, and the federal government ought to be out of it. ... I believe in compassionate leave, if there is a birth or a death or there is something that happens in the family, obviously. But again I wonder about the long arm of the federal government." [Pittsburgh, Sep 7] Let's look at that on a couple of levels. First, did he mean that leave "ought to be left to employees"? He couldn't have. I mean, what a concept. Responsible adults deciding whether they need leave or not? Some businesses out there actually make people keep timecards in quarter-hour installments. No, that has to be an error: either he misspoke or was misquoted. He had to mean the employers. Which fits, of course: keep the feds out of it. Leave it to the employer, or the state, or (another wierdness) the county. Standard Dole/GOP idea. Keep the feds out of the boardroom. So, "why should* the federal government be getting into family leave?"[emphasis mine]. Why? How about becuase the employers won't do it? How about because until the feds got involved we didn't have it? How about because the employers will work you into the ground and then replace you if they're allowed to, paying you crap wages while they do it? How about because there are and have been only two* ways workers in this country ever got anything from employers: if enough union men bled and died for it, or if the feds stepped in and made it mandatory. On May 7, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt said to the nation: It is probably true that 90% of the cotton manufacturers of this country would agree tomorrow to eliminate starvation wages, would agree to stop long hours of employment, would agree to stop child labor, would agree to prevent an overproduction that would result in unsalable surpluses. But, my friends, what good is such an agreement of the 90% if the other 10% of the cotton manufacturers pay starvation wages and require long hours and employ children in their mills and turn out burdensome surpluses? The unfair 10% could produce goods so cheaply that the fair 90% would be compelled to meet the unfair conditions. And that is where government comes in.[emphasis mine] Yes, indeed: that is where, and that is why. And although conditions today aren't anything like as bad as they were in 1933, you know for a fact that employers still have the upper hand. You got to have a job. Even more so, now that "welfare reform" is underway. Bob Dole claims to rememberthe way America used to be. He wasn't an infant in 1933, he can remember this, he knows what it was like. The employer, the businessman, is not benevolent. The last decade or so has shown us that: if a business owner pays his employees when his factory burns to the ground rather than telling them "tough luck", he's a saint, an icon of virtue. Corporations downsize just to improve their bottom line for the stockholders. CEOs take huge bonuses at the same time they're laying of thousands of workers. Thanks, Bob. But no thanks. We want, we need, the "long arm of the federal government" to stop the big businesses from trampling us back down into the dirt.

	it just won't drift away:		"My view is, using drugs is wrong. You shouldn't use drugs. You shouldn't smoke cigarettes. Let's just throw them all out at the same time." Oh, my gosh. Does Bob Dole mean it? Are cigarettes as bad as drugs? Does he plan to ban them? Go Clinton one further, not just regulate cigarettes but 'throw them out'? Well, it sure sounded like it on the 28th of August in Ventura, California, when Bob Dole spoke at a small Christian school. But noo-- when asked if he'd meant what he said, he responded: "Oh, no. Come on, you know better than that." Well, yes. I think we do. Too bad...but those tobacco dollars do override Bob Dole's secret opinions, don't they?

	hatchets, and where to find them:		Al Gore remarked on Wednesday, 28 August, that Bob Dole had offered himself as a bridge to the past, but that Clinton was a bridge to the future. Thursday morning, Dole announced that he "expected nothing different from Al Gore" because "Al Gore was the hatchet man of the Democrat Party." Gosh, it must be tough, when everytime you open your mouth you utter something that, if quoted by another, turns into a hatchet buried in your spine.....

	on solving social problems, in his acceptance speech:		"The root cause of crime: Criminals." Ooooo. Good one. And I bet the root cause of poverty is poor people. The root cause of homelessness is people without homes. Of joblessness, people without jobs. Of hunger, people who aren't eating. To such penetratingly percipient social commentary and planning, I can only say: Angels and ministers of grace, deliver us!

	short pithy sayings from across the years: revelant of our man's mind and mindset		1993: "Gridlock is good. Gridlock was planned by our Founding Fathers in the Constitution." often, rhetorically: "Who's gonna look at Section 2034, section B, subsection C of the code?"(describing how he uses the tax code to benefit his supporters ... yeah, the IRS he's gonna get rid of) 1982: "Corporate welfare" (a term he coined) is "indefensible in a year when the federal deficit will reach nearly $100 billion." And this: "Now we have to make sure that corporations pay taxes." And "What you don't want to do is let some amendment slip in that helps some big corporation." What a difference a presidential race makes! 1982: "When the PACs give money, they expect something in return other than good government." 1990: "It's totally unfair to force a vote that would put our party on record against civil rights." (Not unfair to be against them, mind, but to be forced to go on record as against them.) 1990: Saddam Hussein is "a good leader, a leader to whom the United States can talk." 1992: Saddam Hussein is "The Butcher of Baghdad". 1993: "I had no opinion" on Saddam Hussein before the Gulf War. 1993(?): "Money is the mother's milk of politics." 1979: Elizabeth Dole's blind trust is money that Bob is joint owner of, "common property." 1985: It's something that "I don't know anything about." What's the difference? It's whether, as in '79, the money is being illegally used if he doesn't, or, as in the 80s, if he does, have access to it. 1985: "The [congressional campaign financing] system cries for reform. I think it is incumbent upon all of us to try to achieve that." The Voting Record: Against* Campaign Reform and PAC Reform in: 86, 87, 90, 91, 92 ... supported vetoes of passing legislation in 90-92 ...and filibustered to death measures in 93 and 94.*

	on violence in Hollywood movies, and on good taste, and putting audience numbers first:		"I liked it. We won, the end, leadership, America, good over evil. It's a good movie. Bring your family to, be proud of when you leave. It's about diversity in America and leadership." It is Independence Day, a film Bob obviously feels real good about. This, despite his slamming Strip Tease because its main character is a single mother who dances naked to support her child, and the fact that one of the main characters in ID4 is exactly that same thing. And despite the millions and millions of people who die during it, and the almost overwhelming violence. I guess Bob's joined the Arnold Schwarzenegger school of movie violence, except on the flip side: somebody once asked Arnold about the level of violence in his [then] new release, Total Recall. Yes, he said, it's pretty violent, that's why it got its rating. But, he asked, let me ask you: how many people died in Star Wars? The reporter guessed a kind of low number, then remember the fight scene at the end and upped his guess. No, said Arnold, it was billions. Billions? replied the reporter, that's not right. Yes, it is, said Arnold, they blew up an entire planet, remember? Well, Arnold of course was making the point that violence clearly depicted at least stays with you, while off-screen violence, even horrendously genocidal violence, can pass you right by. Bob, on the other hand, seems to feel that talking about how many people got killed off-screen is okie-dokie, good stuff, fine for the kids. As the little German soldier used to say on Laugh In: Interrrresting.... but stupid. Anyway, Bob's forfeited his right to talk about how horrible Hollywood is, putting audiences and profits ahead of good taste and responsibility. He went on Don Imus's show. If he wants to, because Imus has such a huge audience, fine, go ahead, lots of people do. But having done so, never again have the face to lecture anyone else about putting numbers ahead of taste.

	picking his audiences:		'My schedule was too busy.' 'My staff blew it.' 'Kweise Mfume is trying to set me up.' 'The NAACP is too liberal, and I'm seeking to speak to a group I can "relate to".' These are Dole's reasons, in chronological order of his giving them, that he wouldn't address the NAACP. Since he has, since then, turned down an invitation to speak to the Disabled American Veterans, one is left to wonder just who this guy can "relate to" -- the Freemen, maybe?

	on job opportunities:		"They took a survey and 90 percent of our corporate executives indicated that they are going to have jobs available and nobody is going to be there to apply because they don't have the skills. What's a CEO to do?" Well, how about-- stop downsizing and start retraining?! How about plowing a few thousands of his millions in stock options into training programs?! How about treating his workers like people instead of "resouces"?!

	on patriots & Iran-contra:		"I'm proud to say that my definition of a patriot is Caspar Wienberger ... Clair George ... Elliott Abrams."

	on investigating opponents' staffers:		"We checked out a lot of [Iran-contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh's] staff. We found out their political leanings, and we checked on their political contributions."

	on gun control:		"So what I say, let's move, that we've moved beyond the debate, in my mind, over banning assault weapons. Sounds good. It's a nice sound bite. You can say it on television and everyone thinks they're safe. But we've got to move beound the sound bite, as somebody said. We've got to move beyond banning assault weapons, and instead of endlessly debating guns to ban we ought to be emphasizing what works." Ahhh... 'moved past'. What exactly does that mean? Does that mean we aren't going to be able to win on this, no matter how much money the NRA gives us, so we aren't going to try, but we don't want to say so because we want to make everybody happy, including the NRA so they'll keep giving us money and the voters who actually preferred our original support of the bill to ban the things?

	on reporters:		"I like to talk to the media. You, in the Senate, you can banter back and forth. Nobody takes it seriously. You go out there [in the Senate hallways] for a little stake-out, and they all go, 'Whadya say?' But here [on the campaign trail] when you say it, somebody is going to write it. I don't know, maybe it's because they don't know me or they don't, I don't know....So I say let's don't gamble." Bob, Bob, Bob... you're running for the President of the United States. If Bob Dole says it, of course they will write it. Why is this simple little fact so hard for Bob Dole to understand?

	on private and parochial schools:		They "reduce crime", "cut drug use" and "maybe families will stay together." I see. Public schools are the cause of the whole problem. If every kid in America was in a private school, this would be Utopia. Of course, the thing about private schools is, they don't have to accept all the kids. That's their thing. If a kid is poor, if he's a 'troublemaker', if she's a 'high risk', if he's bringing down their gpa and making them look bad to the other parents and the colleges, if they're just full.... tough luck, go to public school, kid. What's Bob Dole's answer to that? Odd, he seems to have fallen silent.

	on cigarettes:		Among the things that Bob Dole said to former Surgeon-General C. Everett Koop (while trying to explain what he meant by saying that cigarettes were "not necessarily" addictive) was this little gem: he personally discourages smoking and supports efforts to keep cigarettes away from children, he was against any* federal efforts aimed at "regulating a legal product out of existence."* [emphasis mine]

	on domestic abuse:		"The failure of the welfare system" is to blame for domestic violence. "[Welfare] has a lot to do with domestic violence." Reforming welfare is "one way to address it for some people". I have no comment on this, because the man didn't explain what he meant. Of course, it's obvious: he just wants to blame welfare (read: poor people, for which read: blacks & women) for yet one more thing; no one could seriously say that welfare has anything to do with domestic violence. Men beat women at all income levels.

	on Haley Barbour		Haley Barbour is a wonderful RNC chairman; know why? "Anybody who can get $5 million worth of advertising without ever running a spot is the kind of guy we need right now!" Well, this is true; Bob's running out of money. And Barbour sure as death did snooker the media into running that "commercial" [Stripes] everywhere: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN ran it for free because it was "news". Radios ran it. Newspapers talked about it. It was all over the country. And the RNC never paid anybody a penny. And they never -- repeat, never-- did. 'Cause they never put it on as an ad. Gotta love it. If you're an Elephant Head.

	The Abortion Plank Tolerance Thing		Pardon me if I'm just a little puzzled by this, and not really happy. I can't quite imagine what "tolerance" actually means in this context. "We intend to have a constitutional amendment making having an abortion the same thing as murder, a capital crime where there is capital punishment and a life without parole elsewhere. But we're tolerant of your dissenting opinion." That'll do people in jail a hell of a lot of good, won't it, that Bob is tolerant of their opinion?

	the Katie Couric episode		"Today", 2 July: Bob Dole Assails Katie Couric, Calls Koop 'Brainwashed', and MORE! Okay, the point here isn't really whether Bob Dole was mean to poor little sweet Katie Couric--look, she's a television 'journalist', she can handle herself-- or that he said that Dr Koop was "brainwashed by the liberal media" (for one thing, there ain't no liberal media; I'm a liberal, I know liberals when I hear 'em and there aren't any in the media); it's that Dole can't seem to get used to the fact that people are going to ask him questions. That's the news here.