Politics – davidbruceblog #2

Lie Witness News – Trump Watergate Edition (Jimmy Kimmel YouTube)

Lie Witness News – Trump Watergate Edition (Jimmy Kimmel YouTube)

A new tell-all book called ‘A Warning,’ written by an anonymous Senior White House Official, was released today. The saddest part about the book and these impeachment proceedings, is that Trump’s hardcore supporters don’t want to know what he has done wrong. They will support him no matter what. So to prove it, we went out on the street, found people who are fans of Donald Trump, and we asked them how they felt about a bunch of stuff Trump has done. Except none of it was stuff Trump has done, all of the events we described were about Watergate and Richard Nixon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t75kZmrwxg&feature=youtu.be

Lindsey Graham Chokes Up Talking About Joe Biden: “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, then you’ve got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation.” (YouTube)

Lindsey Graham Chokes Up Talking About Joe Biden (YouTube)

Senator Lindsey Graham gets emotional when discussing his longtime friend Vice President Joe Biden. Read full article here: http://huff.to/1KwVLn0. “If you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, then you’ve got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLMYW8jFPHg&feature=youtu.be&t=8

David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

• In 2009, the city council of Tucson, Arizona, fired city manager Mike Hein. Mr. Hein is a personal friend of Tucson Weeklycolumnist Tom Danehy, who regarded the firing as the dumb action of a smart city manager by dumb politicians and wrote forcibly about it. After he wrote about the dumb action, the smart city manager, and the dumb politicians, a woman who had read his column asked him, “Are you the horrible person who wrote those awful things about the [City Council members]?” Mr. Danehy replied, “I’m one of them.” The woman then said, “How do you get away with writing things like that? You probably don’t even know [City Council members] Karin Uhlich or Regina Romero. How can you call them ‘dumb’?” Mr. Danehy replied, “Because the editor probably wouldn’t have let me use ‘f—in’ ignorant.’”

• Satirist Al Franken ran seriously for the United States Senate in his native state of Minnesota. Even when he was in the 7^thand the 8^thgrades, he was interested in politics, In the 8^thgrade, he gave weekly reports in his social-studies class about what was going on in politics, and in the 7^thgrade, he ran for Class President with the slogan, “Never spit in the face of a man unless his mustache is on fire.”

• Herbert Hoover built his career on Americans’ fear of Communism. On January 2, 1920, he was responsible for the arrest of 10,000 Americans suspected of being Communists, most of whom were found to be innocent and were released. These police-state tactics were widely condemned. In fact, few Americans have been Communists. By 1971, the members of the Communist Party in America numbered only 2,800 — but many of them were really FBI agents. In 1963, Hoover told the assistant secretary of the State Department, “If it were not for me, there would not even be a Communist Party, because I’ve financed the Communist Party in order to know what they’re doing.” FBI agent William Sullivan’s duties included closely monitoring the Communist Party. He once suggested that Hoover release the membership numbers of the Communist Party in order to show Americans that the FBI was winning the war against subversion. Hoover refused to do so, asking, “How do you think I’m going to get my appropriations out of Congress if you keep downplaying the Communist Party?” After Hoover died, Mr. Sullivan said that the “Communist threat” was actually “a lie perpetrated on the American people.”

• Lewis Black and Ron, his brother, occasionally had arguments about politics. For example, Lewis was shocked when Ron told him that he was going to vote for H. Ross Perot for President. They started shouting at each other, and the argument ended with Lewis shouting, “Okay, you do that. You vote for H. F**king Ross Perot. And you know what I’m going to do? I’M GOING TO TELL MOM!”

• The citizens of the former USSR hated the government and the shortages of goods that Communism resulted in. According to one underground joke, if the Soviet Communists ever came to power in the Sahara Desert, the Soviets would soon suffer from a severe shortage of sand. Similarly, the Cubans would know that they had achieved Socialism when they were forced to import sugar.

• Antonio López de Santa Anna lost much of his left leg below the knee while fighting the French in Mexico. A man of great ego, he held a funeral for his leg. Unfortunately, he was often unpopular with the people of Mexico—despite being the President of Mexico five times—and in December of 1844 some Mexican citizens dug up his leg and burned and pulverized it.

• Barbara Bush, the wife of one President and the mother of another President, called her parents Daddy and Mommy until she got married. Her father did not care for anything fake. Once Barbara went on a date with a boy and said, “Good night, Father.” Daddy answered, “Good night, Bobsy. Keep your nose clean.” (By the way, she hated the nickname “Bobsy.”)

• Communism has some major faults, including giving way much power to petty bureaucrats. One city official insisted that musicians paid to perform in a park must play for eight straight hours with no intermissions. When the musicians protested, the official stated, “The Government knows best what is and is not possible.”

• Winston Churchill was a long-time opponent of Communism, but when Adolf Hitler attacked Russia in 1941, he gave a speech in favor of the Soviets. When asked how he could do this, Mr. Churchill responded, “If Hitler invaded Hell I would at least make a favorable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

• While in China in 1969, Mother Teresa was asked what she thought a Communist was. She replied, “A child of God, a brother, a sister of mine.” Asked where she had gotten that idea, Mother Teresa said, “From God himself. He said, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me’” (Matthew 25:40).

• Maury Maverick, Jr.’s grandmother was hard of hearing. Once his father tried to introduce her to a famous economist, but she misheard him and thought that he had said “communist,” so she ordered him to get the man off her property.

• “The Party administration which oversaw the Kirov did not understand that it is impossible to produce a ballet about the construction of a hydroelectric plant.” — Natalia Makarova, writing about the tight grip the communists kept on the arts in the former Soviet Union.

• In a scene from Diamond Lil, Mae West’s escort says that he is a politician. She replies, “I don’t like work, either.”

• Comedian Bill Hicks was worried when God told Pat Robertson to run for President — until he realized that God hadn’t told him to vote for him.

• Controversial filmmaker John Waters started voting in 1968 when he opted for a write-in candidate: “Any pig will do.”

• Politicians are like diapers. They ought to be changed regularly and for the same reasons.

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David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

• A controversy arose in 2010 about a mosque being erected near Ground Zero—that is, near the site of the former World Trade Center, which was destroyed in the infamous September 11, 2001, terrorist attack. Actually, the “mosque” would have been a community center with a prayer room rather than a mosque, but most people railing against the “mosque” did not know that. In the United States, of course, the First Amendment guarantees the freedom of religion, but many people railing against the “mosque” seem not to know that. Two women who do understand that, and who understand something that Roger Ebert writes (“Where one religion can build a church, so can all religions”) are a couple of strippers near the 9-11 site. Cassandra is a stripper at New York Dolls. At first, she was concerned that the call to the five daily prayers of Islam would annoy the neighbors, but once she learned that no loudspeakers would be used, she said, “I don’t know what the big deal is. It’s freedom of religion, you know?” And Chris, a stripper at the Pussycat Lounge (and a Red Cross volunteer who helped 9-11 survivors, and a woman who lost eight firefighter friends and neighbors on 9-11) said, “They’re not building a mosque in the World Trade Center. It’s all good. You have your synagogues and your churches. And you have a mosque.” Mr. Ebert writes, “Cassandra and Chris reflect American values more instinctively and correctly on this issue, let it be said, than Sarah Palin, Howard Dean, Newt Gingrich, Harry Reid and Rudy Giuliani, who should know better.”

• Jello Biafra, the lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, once ran a satirical campaign for mayor of San Francisco, during which his platform included such planks as 1) making everyone who worked in the business section wear clown costumes during business hours, 2) hiring back 7,000 city employees who had been laid off and making their job panhandling in rich neighborhoods at a 50% commission, 3) making police officers run campaigns to be rehired in the neighborhoods they patrol (residents in those neighborhoods would cast votes) and 4) legalizing squatting in buildings that were vacant because of tax reasons. As is the case with satire, his humor had a point. For example, he says, “In San Francisco, land of the homeless, there are so many buildings left empty for tax write-off purposes—it’s obscene.”

• After Dan White, a former police officer and city supervisor, murdered San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk, he used the Twinkie defense (he claimed that eating junk food had diminished his ability to use his reason) to get only a 5-year sentence as punishment for committing the two murders. Jello Biafra, lead singer of the Dead Kennedys, regarded this as outrageous, and when he ran for Mayor of San Francisco, he ran on a platform one of whose planks advocated the erection of many Dan White statues in San Francisco—along with concession stands where people could buy eggs and tomatoes to throw at the statues.

• As a politician running for the office of President of the United States, John F. Kennedy shook many, many hands (sometimes using both of his hands), and his own hands were often sore. In addition, overeager fans reaching into his car sometimes tore off the buttons of his coat. Often, the cuffs of his shirts became shredded from his interactions with voters and fans, and so his aides carried around spare cuffs for him. By the way, Mr. Kennedy was not like some modern politicians who wished to avoid active service in the military. Mr. Kennedy tried to enlist twice in the United States armed forces during World War II, but he failed the physical examination both times. He used his family connections to get into the United States Navy, a branch of the armed forces in which he became a war hero.

• Gore Vidal tells this story about John “Jack” F. Kennedy: John’s father was Joseph Kennedy, a very wealthy man who spent large amounts of money getting John elected to public offices, including the Presidency. After John was elected President in 1960, Joe took all nine of his children, including John, to Palm Beach, where he told them, “All you read about the Kennedy fortune is untrue. It’s non-existent. We’ve spent so much getting Jack elected, and not one of you is living within your income.” Joe then turned to John and asked, “Mr. President, what’s the solution?” John answered, “The solution is simple. You all gotta work harder.”

• In France (at least until recently), politicians and civil-service workers were expected to be well read. In 2006, French President Nicholas Sarkozy got book lovers angry at him when he suggested that civil service entrance exams should not include questions about such things as the 17^th-century French novel La Princesse de Clèvesby Madame de La Fayette. Lovers of the works of La Fayette immediately did such things as arrange public readings of La Princesse de Clèves. In addition, the writer Jacques Drillon suggested that since Mr. Sarkozy is not well read, citizens of France should perform the good deed of mailing him books.

• On December 1, 1854, a national referendum was held in Mexico to determine whether Antonio López de Santa Anna should continue in office as President of Mexico. Voters signed their names in one of two books: one book recorded votes favorable to Santa Anna, and the other recorded votes against Santa Anna. After the referendum, in which the citizens of Mexico overwhelming voted that he continue in office, Santa Anna arrested everyone who had signed the book that recorded votes against him.

• Even back when he was a stand-up comic, Minnesota Senator Al Franken was interested in politics. Henry Kissinger once personally telephoned the offices of Saturday Night Liveto request tickets to the show. Mr. Franken answered the phone and told him, “No.” When Mr. Kissinger asked why he couldn’t get the tickets, Mr. Franken told him, “Because of the bombing of Cambodia.”

• “Politics: the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.” — Oscar Ameringer

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David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

• Linus Pauling is the only person to have won two unshared Nobel Prizes. In 1954, he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, and in 1962, he won the Nobel Peace Prize. In April 1962, he participated in a peace march around the White House while carrying a placard that stated, “We Have No Right To Test” — the word “Test” referred to nuclear testing. Shortly afterward, he and many other people (including 48 other invitees who had won the Nobel Prize) went inside the White House to eat a meal with President John F. Kennedy, who said that his four-year-old daughter, Caroline, had watched the peace march and then asked, “Mummy, what has Daddy done wrong now?” In 1960, two years after giving a petition to end nuclear war to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Pauling was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) of the United States Senate, which wanted to know how he had gotten so many signatures on the petition. Mr. Pauling was suspected of being a Communist and SISS thought that a Communist organization might have helped him get the signatures, but in 1972 the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) closed its 2,500-page file on him after discovering in years of investigation no evidence that he was a Communist. Mr. Pauling told SISS, “I think that my reputation and example may well have led these younger people to work for peace in this way. My conscience will not allow me to protect myself by sacrificing these idealistic and hopeful people, and I am not going to do it. As a matter of conscience, as a matter of principle, as a matter of morality, I have decided that I shall not conform to the request of the subcommittee.” SISS received no names from Mr. Pauling. By the way, in 1945, Mr. Pauling made the decision “to sacrifice part of my scientific career to working for the control of nuclear weapons and for the achievement of world peace. In the early 1950s, he discovered that some of his scientific work was not going to be supported by grants because of his political views. He resubmitted the grant applications, leaving off his name and instead using the names of his collaborators. The grants were approved.

• When Ken Kettlewell, author of Presidential Passages, a book about the Bibles the Presidents of the United States used at their inaugurations, was 12 years old in 1937, one of his teachers, Paul M. Davis, invited him to listen on his radio to the third inaugural address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mrs. Davis served cookies, and in his book Mr. Kettlewell writes, “I don’t remember the inaugural address. I do remember the cookies.” By the way, the Bible that Grover Cleveland used at both of his inaugurations was a gift. Clerk of the Supreme Court James H. McKenney, reported, “He was the owner of a small Bible, not larger than our hand. His mother had presented it to him when he was a boy, and he had treasured it ever since. It was used at both Inaugurals.” The Bible on which Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office was given to him when he was a boy by his grandmother. While staying at his father’s house, Vice President Coolidge received a telegram at midnight telling him that President Warren G. Harding had died. Mr. Coolidge’s father, who had been asleep, got up and administered to his son the oath of office.

• It hurts to lose a campaign for President of the United States. As columnist Mark Shields writes, “What it means for starters is that the first line of your obituary, ‘(fill in the blank), defeated presidential nominee, died yesterday at the age of,’ has already been written.” Walter “Fritz” Mondale lost a landslide election to Ronald Reagan in 1984, and George McGovern lost a landslide election to Richard Nixon in 1972. Mr. Mondale and Mr. McGovern met in 1988, and Mr. Mondale asked Mr. McGovern, “Please tell me, George, when does it stop hurting?” Although 16 years had passed since his loss, Mr. McGovern replied, “I’ll let you know, Fritz. I’ll let you know.”

• In July 1996, Boris Yeltsin was worried about getting enough votes to be reelected President of Russia. Many of his supporters lived in cities, and he was afraid that they would leave the cities and go to their country cottages and have a good time and not bother to vote. He wanted them to stay in the cities and vote for him. He found a way to do just that. Tropikankawas a very popular television soap opera in Russia. The soap opera broadcast three new episodes between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. on election day. Most country cottages did not have televisions, so people stayed in the cities, watched the three episodes, and then had plenty of time left over to vote. Mr. Yeltsin won the election by more than 10 million votes.

• In 1996, when Vice President Al Gore spoke at the graduation ceremony of MIT students, the graduation students played “Al Gore Buzzword Bingo.” The students had bingo cards that lacked numbers but which did have buzzwords such as “information superhighway,” “Infobahn,” “paradigm,” and “empower.” Every time Mr. Gore said one of the buzzwords, the students would mark out that square. The students who got five buzzwords in a row were instructed (the instructions were printed on the card) not to shout “BINGO” (“which would be rude and potentially upset the men with wires in their ears”), but to hold up the card so that Mr. Gore could see it.

• Tom Morello, the Harvard-educated (in political science) musician in Rage Against the Machine, once worked a day job as the late California Democratic Senator Alan Cranston’s scheduling secretary, a position in which he worked mostly at raising money. One day, a crying woman called the Senator’s office to complain about the Mexicans moving into her neighborhood. He called the woman a racist, and he told her to go to hell, remarks for which he got into trouble. Mr. Morello says, “That’s when I realized, if in my job I can’t tell a racist to go to hell, I’m not in the right job.”

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David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

In 1903, union organizer Mother Jones attempted to have President Theodore Roosevelt see a group of children who worked long hours for little pay in the mills of Philadelphia, but he refused to see her and the children, saying that the problem of child labor had to be addressed by the states, not by the federal government. Therefore, Mother Jones sneaked into Oyster Bay, where the President was vacationing. She knew that the President’s men would be looking out for her and a small army of mill children and that they would be expecting them to march into town, so she fooled everyone by sending most of the children and other marchers home and keeping only three small boys and two advisors with her. They then took the train into Oyster Bay, looking like a regular family, not like an army of mill children. Unfortunately, although Mother Jones got into Oyster Bay, President Roosevelt still refused to meet with her, and he still refused to do anything about solving the problem of child labor in the United States.

Emmeline Pankhurst was a crusader for women’s suffrage in England, but she learned a lot from a fellow activist: her daughter Christabel. For a long time, Emmeline tried to politely advocate women’s rights, but she was ignored. But in 1905, Christabel, accompanied by a friend, attended a speech by a politician. During the question-and-answer session, Christabel and her friend asked, “Will the government give votes to women?” The politician ignored the question, so Christabel and her friend asked it again and again. Eventually, Christabel and her friend were arrested, and suddenly newspapers began writing about women’s suffrage. Emmeline realized that in order to get the topic of women’s rights noticed by the newspapers, she had to quit being polite. Thereafter, Emmeline, Christabel, and Sylvia (another daughter) were arrested many, many times (as were Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. later). By the time Emmeline died, women had the vote in England.

Did you know that the comic book heroine Wonder Woman was created for the purpose of serving as feminist propaganda? It’s true. William Moulton Marston—the guy who invented the technological basis of the lie detector—created Wonder Woman in the 1940s. He explained, “Wonder Woman is psychological propaganda for the new type of woman who should, I believe, rule the world. There isn’t love enough in the male organism to rule this planet peacefully. … I have given Wonder Woman this dominant force but have kept her loving, tender, maternal, and feminine in every other way.” In other words, according to her creator, the purpose of Wonder Woman is to help brainwash young male comic-book readers into allowing women to rule them.

Politics sometimes intrudes on sports in odd ways. In 1937, several Negro Leagues stars, including Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson, played on a team for Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo, who wanted them to win the championship because he thought that it would boost his popularity. Before the game that determined the championship, team manager Lazaro Salazar informed his players that if they did not win the game, they could end up losing more than a game and a championship—they could very well lose their lives if the dictator decided to have them executed. They won, 6-5.

General Maxwell Taylor decided to discontinue varsity fencing at West Point, and he needed to come up with a reason for his decision when the fencers complained to him. His first excuse was, “Frankly, gentlemen, it’s the cost.” The fencers laughed, knowing that the cost was approximately $6,000—nothing to the military. His second excuse was, “Frankly, gentlemen, it’s the lack of facilities.” Again, everyone laughed, knowing that West Point had the best fencing facility in the United States. His third and final excuse was, “Gentlemen, fencing is a sport for intellectuals, and we don’t want intellectuals in the army.”

Ann Richards, former governor of Texas, did not put up with bull. While going through an airport metal detector as she was wearing underpants with metal snaps, she set off an alarm and the security guard wanted to take her to a private area where Ms. Richards’s private parts could be investigated thoroughly. However, Ms. Richards was late for her flight, so she told the security guard, “I will take off my pants here and now—right here.” The security guard decided to let her board her flight without any further annoyance.

Anne McCaffrey, author of the Pern novels about telepathic dragons, was working as a dessert chef when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died of a cerebral hemorrhage. The two chefs who ran the restaurant looked at each other, and then they turned off all the burners in the kitchen before telling the customers that out of respect for President Roosevelt, the restaurant was closing. No one argued with the chefs. Everyone was too busy crying.

According to historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Barbara Tuchman’s book The Guns of August once prevented what might have been another world war. President John F. Kennedy read the book during the Cuban missile crisis, and after reading how World War I had started as a result of the advice of the hard-line, bone-headed military experts of the time, he resisted taking advice from the hard-line, bone-headed military experts of his own time.

An episode of Laugh-In once showed Richard Nixon saying in a puzzled voice, “Sock it to me?” This may have lightened up his image enough to get a few votes from young voters and so become President of the United States. At least, some people thought that that was plausible. In fact, singer Lena Horne once kicked Laugh-In co-host Dick Martin and said, “You son of a bitch, you elected that bastard!”

Texas governor Ann Richards knew how to give advice to teenagers. She once saw a teenager pouring charcoal lighter directly onto a fire, but she did not tell him directly how stupid such an action was; instead, she said, “Honey, if you keep doing that, the fire is going to climb right back up to that can in your hand and explode and give you horrible injuries, and it will just ruin my entire weekend.”

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David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

When Norman Mailer ran for Mayor of New York, his running mate was Jimmy Breslin. Their rallying cry was “Vote the rascals in!” Both writers were known for hard living, and when they spoke at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice to police students, they ran into a police officer who asked Mr. Mailer, “If you and Breslin go ape on the same evening, who will run the city?” Mr. Mailer, of course, was an original (as was Mr. Breslin). Mr. Mailer had a column in the Village Voice for a while, but he quit after four months because a mistake in copy-editing had changed his nuance into nuisance. Obviously, Mr. Mailer’s beliefs, whether in literature or politics, were strong. After deciding to vote for Bobby Kennedy, whom he thought had a prep-school arrogance but was capable of greatness, Mr. Mailer wrote, “To vote for a man who is neuter is to vote for the plague. I would rather vote for a man on the assumption he is a hero and have him turn into a monster than vote for a man who can never be a hero.”

Syndicated columnist Susan Estrich wonders about the effect that pollution is having on our lives; many doctors wonder the same thing. She also wonders why politicians aren’t doing more to clean up pollution; many doctors wonder the same thing. After finding a lump in her breast, she consulted a doctor—fortunately, the lump wasn’t cancer. However, she did ask her doctor if she wasn’t too young to be worried about contracting breast cancer—wasn’t that a disease for women older than herself? He asked her if she knew anything about politics. When she replied that she knew a little, he asked her to consult people who were knowledgeable about politics and ask them why he was spending more and more time treating more and more young women who were contracting a disease that used to attack mostly older women. Her doctor said to her, “We need political leadership.” Ms. Estrich agrees.

Aristides de Sousa Mendes, the Portuguese Consul-General in Bordeaux, rescued thousands of Jews from the Holocaust by directly disobeying his country’s orders and giving visas to Jews so that they could escape to freedom. A devout Roman Catholic, Mr. Mendes knew that he was risking his career, his reputation, and his own money by rescuing Jews. However, he said, “I cannot allow these people to die. Our constitution says that the religion or the politics of a foreigner shall not be used to deny refuge in Portugal. I have decided to follow this principle. Even if I am discharged, I can only act as a Christian, as my conscience tells me. If I am disobeying orders, I would rather be with God against men than with men against God.” The Jews used the Portuguese visas to escape to neutral Spain.

Populist Presidents can be extremely popular. Bill Moyers’ father, Henry Moyers, knew that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was on the side of the people. And because Henry Moyers was one of the people, he knew that President Roosevelt was on his side. Bill once asked his father why he had voted for President Roosevelt four times—only President Roosevelt’s death had kept Henry Moyers from voting for him a fifth, sixth, or even more times. Mr. Moyers—who had never met President Roosevelt—replied, “Because the President’s my friend.” Bill remembers the first time that he saw his father cry—it was the day that President Roosevelt died.

Actor Eli Wallach was born and raised in Brooklyn, but he attended the University of Texas at Austin because out-of-state tuition was only $30 for his first year. His professors often called on him in class. Why? Mr. Wallach explains, “Because they wanted to hear my Brooklyn accent.” Mr. Wallach became interested in Texas politics when he was at Austin. The governor at the time of his first year at the college was a woman, Ma Ferguson, whose husband had been Texas governor but had been impeached. Ma Ferguson ran for governor and was elected, and her husband kept on running the state just like he had before being impeached.

In 1903, union organizer Mother Jones led a group of child laborers from Philadelphia mills to New York City in a march designed to bring attention to the existence of child labor in the United States and to improve the lives of the working children. She even attempted to meet with President Theodore Roosevelt and have him see the mill children, but he resisted her attempts, saying that he believed in states’ rights and therefore child labor was the concern of states, not of the United States. Years later, Mother Jones said of President Roosevelt, “He had a lot of secret service men watching an old woman and an army of children. You fellows do elect wonderful Presidents.”

Back in 1956, a year when Yugoslavia was under the control of the dictator Josef Broz Tito, a Yugoslav consul-general confessed to theatrical guru Danny Newman that he never missed a performance at the Chicago Civic Opera by the baritone Tito Gobbi. Mr. Newman said that he understood that because Mr. Gobbi was a truly great baritone, but the consul-general replied, “Yes, but that’s not the real reason I love him so much. You see, Mr. Newman, Yugoslavia is a communist country and not very popular here. So your Civic Opera House is the only place in this country where I can publicly yell my head off with “BRAVO Tito! BRAVO Tito!”

Chuck Close took photographs of President Bill Clinton during a photo session in which he learned something about the former President that most people don’t know—that in at least one way, he is sensitive about his appearance. When Mr. Close showed up for the photo session, Mr. Clinton said, “Damn, look at those bags under my eyes. I forgot to take my water pills.” The water pills help to reduce the size of the bags under a person’s eyes, and evidently Mr. Clinton is sensitive about the bags under his eyes.

Fred W. McDarrah, long-time photographer for New York’s Village Voice, enjoyed taking photographs of the double-chinned movers and shakers of the predator class at fundraising dinners. He would take a photograph, and if the subject of the photograph angrily waved him away, he would take another photograph. Mr. McDarrah had a satiric streak; in 1960, he even started a small business known as “Rent-a-Beatnik.”

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David Bruce: Politics Anecdotes

In the 1820s, in Johnstown, New York, a woman named Flora Campbell lived on a farm that had once belonged to her parents. Living with her were her husband and her son. When the husband died, he left the farm in his will to their son. The son then ordered Mrs. Campbell, his mother, off the property. Wondering what rights she had in this matter, Mrs. Campbell consulted the lawyer Daniel Cady, who informed her that legally a woman’s husband owned whatever property she had and that legally he could will it to whichever person he wished. Mr. Cady’s daughter, Elizabeth, overheard this conversation. She thought that the law was “mean” and therefore she wanted to use scissors to cut it out of her father’s law book. However, her father explained that this action would do little good. The law needed to be changed, and making that change would take an action by the legislature. As an adult, Elizabeth—better known as Elizabeth Cady Stanton—became a forceful and effective advocate of women’s rights.

In 2008, the twin cities of St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota, hosted the Republican National Convention. The Minnesota state legislature wanted the Republican delegates, candidates, and lobbyists to enjoy themselves, so they voted to allow bars to stay open two hours later and close at 4 a.m. instead of 2 a.m. However, the St. Paul City Council voted against this extension of bar hours. Council member David Thune had a very good reason for voting against more bar hours, “I got 8,000 people who live downtown who don’t want a bunch of Republican lobbyists puking on the streets.”

When something is badly worrying your child, it’s time to take action. Jim, the 16-year-old son of young people’s book author Gary Paulsen, writer of Hatchet, once was badly worried about dying young because of “the nuclear thing.” Mr. Paulsen and his son took action by writing a letter to Russia. The letter carried this message: “Dear Russia, We don’t want to kill you and we don’t want you to kill us. Gary Paulsen and his son Jim do not want to blow you up and we do not want you to blow us up.”

While in Yugoslavia, movie star Kirk Douglas wanted to meet Tito, so he paid a visit to the British embassy, where he met the British ambassador, who told him, “My boy, I’ve been here for six weeks and have yet to see Tito. You don’t stand a chance.” The very next day, Tito sent his very own private plane to take Mr. Douglas to Lubiana, where the two men met. When Mr. Douglas returned, the British ambassador asked him how such an amazing event could happen. Mr. Douglas replied, “Mr. Ambassador, how many movies have you made?”

Monte Irvin was one of the first African-American athletes to play major-league baseball in the 20^thcentury. In Orange, New Jersey, Mr. Irvin wanted to buy property on which he could build a house, but he was unable to because of the color of his skin. Therefore, he proposed to his lawyer that the lawyer buy the property and then Mr. Irvin would buy the property from him. Unfortunately, the lawyer responded, “No, I’m afraid of that, and I’m president of the Republican Club.” Mr. Irwin got a new lawyer—a Democrat.

Ralph Nader’s father, Nathra, was amused when Ronald Reagan ranted about “Welfare queens” during the 1980 Presidential campaign. Nathra pointed out, correctly, “When the rich take our tax money, it’s called a subsidy. When the poor get it, it’s called Welfare. Actually, the rich are our biggest Welfare cases.” Nathra was known for discussing politics in his restaurant. His customers said, “At Nader’s place, for a nickel you got a cup of coffee and 10 minutes of conversation.”

In 1948, Harry S. Truman won the election for President of the United States. He was already living in the White House, having become President after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s death. (Mr. Truman was Mr. Roosevelt’s Vice President.) Many people had expected President Truman to lose the Presidential election and to have to move out of the White House. Following President Truman’s upset victory, comedian Bob Hope sent him this short telegram: “UNPACK!”

A horse race at the Epsom Derby in 1913 led to women in England getting the right to vote. Anmer, the favorite to win, was well in the lead in the homestretch when a suffragette named Emily Davidson ran onto the racetrack, shouted “Long live women’s suffrage,” and threw herself into the path of the horse, which trampled and killed her. Her death gained lots of publicity for women’s right to vote, and Parliament quickly passed a law recognizing that right.

At a time of an epidemic of sexual assaults against women in Israel, the Israeli cabinet discussed instituting a curfew for women, thus not allowing women to be outside after a certain time. Israeli politician Golda Meir objected, “But it’s the men who are attacking the women. If there’s a curfew, let the men stay at home, not the women.”

At an airport, a woman was wearing a “John Kerry: A Stronger America” button during the 2004 Presidential election when a fundamental Christian couple came up to her and said, “A vote for John Kerry will hasten the Second Coming.” The woman asked, “Isn’t that a good reason to vote Democrat?”

The BBC’s Jenni Murray recognizes the influence that Margaret Thatcher had as the first woman to serve as British Prime Minister. When the news came that she would be replaced by John Major, Ms. Murray’s nine-year-old asked her, “Mum, is that right? I thought prime minister was a woman’s job.”

Noam Chomsky is so famed as an intellectual that often he has to schedule his speeches years in advance. Sometimes, years in advance, he is asked for the title of his speech. Mr. Chomsky says, “If I am asked for a title, I suggest ‘The Current Crisis in the Middle East.’ It has yet to fail.”

The political humor on the 1960s comedy show Laugh-In was not always immediately apparent. For example, you have to watch closely to see that when Lily Tomlin’s telephone operator character Ernestine dials FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, she uses her middle finger.

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