Newt Gingrich

• "House Speaker Newt Gingrich says he is going to focus less on running the House this year and more on the national agenda, including campaign appearances. That will be welcome news to many congressional candidates--but most of them may be Democrats."

• 4'10" Labor Secretary Robert Reich : "Gingrich is saying he wants to get me out of a job. But then he's always picking on the little people."

• Comedy writer Alan Ray, on media baron Rupert Murdoch's 1996 launch of his own sailboat racing series : "He likes going out on his yacht with his lap dog. Here Newt, here boy."

• Argus Hamilton on the Newt saying he's sick of people saying he does nothing for the poor : "He's right, it's not fair. On some days, he oversleeps."

• Newt's secret problem, premature elucidations.

• Newt is the kind of politician who approaches every question with an open mouth.

• Comedy writer Jerry Perisho, on the new $100 dollar bills : "They will be printed on recycled material that is plentiful and worthless --
  the GOP's 'contract with America'"

• More on the Contract with America - The most dangerous thing in the world is to leap a chasm in two jumps.

• H.L. Mencken on the contract : "There is always an easy solution to every human problem --
  neat, plausible, and wrong."

• Abraham Lincoln on The Newt : "He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I ever met."

• Oscar Wilde on Gingrich : "He thinks like a Tory, and talks like a Radical, and that's so important nowadays."

• Newt cannot see a belt without hitting below it.

• On a baby cougar biting Newt on the chin : "Details on the story are sketchy. In fact, we don't even know which of Newt's chins he bit."

• Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said of Gingrich : "I don't think there's ever been anyone who's become so unpopular so fast without being a mass murderer. It's unparalleled."

• Newt Gingrich is the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, then mount the stump for a speech on conservation.

• Comedy writer Paul Ryan Newt : Newt says that deep down inside, he's just a 4-year-old.
  "Even back then he would beat up kids and take their lunch money.

• Franklin Roosevelt : "Government cannot close its eyes to the pollution of waters, to the erosion of soil, to the slashing of forests any more than it can close its eyes to the need for slum clearance and schools."
  FDR is the man Newt calls his "political father."
  Go figure.

Rush Limbaugh

• Cutler Daily Scoop : "Scientists are working feverishly to combat a parasite known as the"superpest," which is threatening the Florida citrus crop.
  'Rush Limbaugh is still upset over being dumped as spokesman?'"

• What do you call two or more ditto heads? DIDIOTS (a reader)

• How many ditto heads does it take to change a light bulb? Can't be done, they only know how to twist things to the right.(same reader)

• In his own words, "The media likes to call you people 'dittoheads' ... Huh, well, the next time somebody tells YOU that you can't think for yourself, here's what you tell them."

• Why is Rush a spokesman for Pizza Hut? With the Whoppers he tell he's a natural for Burger King.

• Over 130,000 bytes of Limbaugh's lies documented by FAIR making "The Rush Limbaugh Show" The Home of the Whoppers.

• A man had just gone to pick up the new car he had ordered. This was a state-of-the-art vehicle, with computerized everything. When the salesman was showing the man where all the controls were located, the man became exasperated because he couldn't find the controls for the radio.

  The salesman laughed and said, "There are no controls. The radio operates by voice recognition. Watch this : I think we'll listen to classical."

  Suddenly, the sound of a Mozart symphony filled the car.

  Then the salesman said, "Blues" and they were listening to B.B. King.

  The man who had bought the car was very impressed and drove off the lot in a great mood. He was amazed by his radio and kept changing the stations.

  "Jazz," the man said, and he was instantly listening to Charlie Parker.

  "Disco" he said, and that produced K.C. and the Sunshine Band.

  The man kept this up for some time, tuning in to every kind of music imaginable just by asking for it. In fact, he was so enthralled that he wasn't really paying attention to the road. Suddenly, another driver cut him off.

  Without thinking, the man yelled, "Big, Fat Idiot!" and the next thing he knew, he was listening to Rush Limbaugh.

The Doles

• Campaigning in Disneyland - Dole is Grumpy while Pat plays So White.

• No spin doctors for Bob Dole. His ideas are so dead he's using spin morticians.

• Orange County. Elizabeth Dole visited Leisure World yesterday - The perfect place to stump for votes.

• "With the GOP nomination all but in Bob Dole's pocket, Jay Leno says he can feel Dole Fever sweeping the nation. 'I haven't seen excitement like this since, well, since we almost switched to the metric system.'"

• Free ride. Is that what the press is giving Elizabeth Dole or is she mooching her husband's senior citizen bus pass?

• On MTV, Bob Dole was asked whether he wore boxer shorts or briefs. He said, "Depends."

• Record-setting horse trainer Frank Passaro and his groom have been charged with rubbing hot pepper on the sex organs of their horses to make them run faster. Says Jay Leno, "This could be the trick that saves the Dole campaign ."

• The GOP prides itself on being the party of ideas. But Bob Dole doesn't know what they are.

• Bob Dole never raised the issue of Whitewater. Bob Dole's got Al D'Amato for that.

• "Dole's national co-chair, Al D'Amato is pushing Colin Powell as running mate, saying Powell "would reinvigorate the ticket." How? Does he know CPR?"

• General Powell's reluctance is presenting a big problem for Dole--The last thing a 72-year-old man needs is a slow Colin. ( "Laugh Lines," L.A. Times. )

  "Bob Dole wants to clarify any misunderstandings about his position on abortion. He's against it in all cases except rape, incest or where the survival of the candidate is at risk."

• Dole's campaign slogan - "I'm entitled."

• If you remember Batista, you can remember a time Dole wasn't in Washington.

• "Bob Dole is as dynamic as a clipboard."

• Bob Dole is a wholly owned subsidiary of Archer Daniels Midland. ( Jim Hightower? )

• Bob Dole gave a fireside chat and the fire went out.

• Jay Leno on Bob Dole saying people mimic what they see in movies : "That's true. Look at what happened to him after he saw 'Grumpy Old Men.'"

• Anonymous is writing a Bob Dole roman a clef - Primary Colorless.

• One of Borderline's Top Ten Reasons Bob Dole Wants to Be President.
  "I think my generation has one more chance to make a difference."

• Colin Powell says running for President "requires a calling that I do not yet hear. Bob Dornan heard the calling. What he didn't know was, it was a prank call."

• Republican presidential candidate Bob Dornan on abortion clinic violence : "You don't fight evil with evil. You have to fight it with love compassion and insults."

Pat Buchanan

• We can't stand Pat

• Attn : Buchanan supporters : Fluff and Fold gives half off for laundering sheets.

• Little Known Fact : Pat Buchanan's grandfather died in a concentration camp -- He fell out of a guard tower.

• Baseless Rumors. There's nothing to those stories that say Buchanan's ancestors were from Ireland. Immigrant-basher Pat necessarily derives from an unbroken line of Native Americans. By the way, his spirit name is "Running with Aryans."

• "Pat Buchanan's political motto might have been borrowed from the advertising campaign of the 1965 movie 'The Loved One' :
  'Something to offend everybody.'"

• What's the difference between Adolf Hitler and Pat Buchanan?
  One is a maniacal, racist, evangelical fascist bent on world domination.
  The other's a German.

• Buchanan disputes news reports that his aide attended a white supremacist meeting. Pat maintains, "I didn't see him anywhere."

• Molly Ivins The good news is that Pat Buchanan - aside from being a racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic anti-Semite -
  is a fairly likable human being.

• Anti-Black, anti-Semitic, anti-women, anti-intellectual, anti-gay, anti-immigrant, anti-Wall Street.
  To Pat Buchanan this means being "Pro-American."

• Pat Buchanan is evidence that the Native Americans had a lousy immigration policy.

• "Watching a cowboy-hatted Pat Buchanan ride through Tucson atop a horse-drawn wagon, Argus Hamilton wondered, 'Where's Rodgers and Hammerstein when you need them? It looked like a surrey with the lunatic fringe on the top.'"

• His support -- Where does it come from? Rightwingers, anti-establishment types, and comics in search of new material.

• The Unabomber's manifesto calls for the overthrow of the government and the burning of books. This prompted Pat Buchanon to say, "Hey, that's my campaign platform."

• What's the difference between Pat Buchanan and the Hindenberg?
  One is a flaming Nazi gasbag; the other's just a dirigible.

• "On Monday, Pat Buchanan threw his hood into the ..." ( Jay Leno, "Laugh Lines" )

• When he won the New Hampshire primary, Pat gave a rousing speech. But it sounded better in the original German.

• "Pat Buchanan says there is no room for racists in the Republican Party. I knew there were a lot, but I didn't know all the slots had been filled!"

• "A sheep in wolf's clothing."--That's what a Washington pundit affectionately calls Buchanan. He stole that joke from a 1920s German newspaper.

At The 1996 Oscars

• Oscar at 68 is younger than Bob Dole.

• I'm glad that it looks like Bob's going to get that nomination, Honey.
  It means he'll be too damn busy to go to the movies."

• Buchanan--the original Boy in the Hood -- had a pronounced influence on the movies this year.
  Dangerous Minds, Clueless, and Dumb and Dumber.

• About Showgirls-- I haven't seen that many Poles mistreated since World War II.

• Jesse Jackson wanted me to wear a rainbow ribbon. Actually, I had something I wanted to say to Jesse right here. But he's not watching. So, why bother?

• "Don Imus looks like beef jerky in a suit. The man is dead and no one's told him."

More GOP Creeps

• "Sen. Strom Thurmond is running for reelection at age 93. Alan Ray says Thurmond is so old he can remember a day when black people had to use a restroom marked "colored." It was last Thursday, when he stopped by Jesse Helm's office."

• He's an animal! "[CA] Gov. Pete Wilson visited the Orange County Zoo to welcome 'Samson,' a hot-tub loving black bear, last week ... 'After his speech, the governor, accompanied by six children, his entourage and dozens of reporters, climbed out of his pool to pace along his chain-link fence, occasionally standing on his hind legs and tilting his head back.'"

• The only thing Perot should run for is his psychiatrist's office.

• America's new Drug Czar is a winner of three Purple Hearts and two Silver Stars. But here's the question we have for General Barry McCaffrey - Is your wife now a Czarling and your children Czardines?

• Robin Williams on Henry Kissinger addressing the board of MGM - "That filmvas a bomb, and I know bombs. Vhat ve should do in Bosnia, drop Showgirls on them."

• The Birdcage.
  The film's writer interviews the director :

  Elaine May : Do you subscribe to the current belief that there is no paranoia?

  Mike Nichols : Far from it. I happen to know for a fact that this is a lie instituted by the international banking conspiracy and the FBI.

  E.M. : How would you go about achieving world peace if you had the time?

  M.N. : I would institute a huge tax break for interracial marriages as well as marriages among warring factions. Eventually we would have one very good-looking group of people who get along fine. I admit this would take time but I am patient.

  E.M. : What is the biggest secret you were ever told and asked not to repeat?

  M.N. : The identity of Anonymous. You know, the one who wrote "Greensleeves."

• "If bookies and stockbrokers were as wrong as often as political analysts and commentators have been lately, they would be broke. Only major league baseball managers can fail so consistently and still find work."

• Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) - "If senators cooperated on a textbook, the introduction would be 450 pages -- and the text would be one."

• "Jealousies among House and Senate Committees snarl GOP efforts ... Even some party allies are confused; one family-group lobbyist calls the congressional GOP 'a dysfunctional family.'"

• Water pollution as a diagnostic tool. "[Republican] Rep. Tom Coburn, a physician from Oklahoma, argues that the water pollutant cryptosporidium, which caused 104 deaths and poisoned 400,000 people in Wisconsin in 1993, can 'be very helpful because it helps us identify those people who, in fact, are immuno-compromised.' Yes, one observer noted, and bullets can help identify hemophiliacs."

• Mario Cuomo's Mom. One day, at the governor's mansion, my mother saw Lee Iacocca's picture on a magazine cover and, unable to read the headline but suspecting he was Italian, she asked me about him. I told her it was a story about the millions of dollars he earns every year. She said, "What does he do?" I said, "He's the boss at Chrysler; they make cars." She said, "What's the matter, you don't know how to make a car?"

• Did you hear that the National Institutes of Health is going to start using Republicans in its experiments rather than white rats? There were three reasons : First, the lab technicians were getting attached to the rats, and they knew no one would ever get attached to a Republican. Also, the public was getting upset about the treatment of the rats, and no one would get upset about delivering electric shocks to a Republican. But the overriding reason is that there are certain things that you just can't get a lab rat to do.

• "The Attack of the Killer D'Amato" -- That's how reader John Paradox refers to the Whitewater Witch Hunt.

• "Having Al D'Amato head up an ethics investigation is like getting Bob Dornan to lead a mental-health task force."

• The Republicans thought the 1994 Election gave them a mandate. But polls are telling them it was only a boy date.

• What do you have when you've got six Republicans buried up to their necks in sand? Not Enough Sand.

• What do you call 100,000 Republicans at the bottom of the ocean? A good start.

• Reader Erik Solomon observes, "The Log Cabin Republicans are like Jews for Hitler."

• Another from Solomon, "I've tried both pessimism and skepticism and they just don't work at all."

• Jay Leno on Tennessee Sen. Bill Frist's career choices: "He's a doctor and a senator. Now he has two reasons to tell women to take their clothes off."

• How to know for sure that your senator is nuts?You live in North Carolina.

• Comic Jenny Church, on Disney planning a live action film of Mr. Magoo :"The studio wants to cast the ultimate bumbling old man with no vision, - Jesse Helms

• So their senator won't be a joke, North Carolina will elect Harvey Gantt in '96.

• Republicans are pessimists about the present and optimists about the past.

• Comic Steve Tatham, on the new biography that suggests Mary Todd Lincoln trapped Abe into marriage by getting pregnant : "Researchers also reveal that Abe refused to discuss it at the time, saying only, "That was one score and nine months ago."

• Honest Abe's Finesse. Although he was elected a militia captain in the Black Hawk War, Lincoln was not trained as a soldier. He learned a little about close-order drill, but not enough to master the more complicated commands. Once when he found his company marching directly into a fence, he could not remember how to order them to pass through a gate. With considerable presence of mind he called a halt, dismissed the company for two minutes, and ordered them to to re-form on th e other side of the fence.

• "Why is it that when the Republicans want to provide incentives for poor people they take money away from them, but when they want to provide incentives for rich people they give them money?"

• Nietzsche on Pat Robertson : After coming into contact with a religious man, I always feel I must wash my hands.

• On the resurgence of right-wing wackos : The Birch John Society is raising its ugly head again.

• A Bob Flisser ditty : Hickory Trickery Dick, That pardon sure did stick. By the time he died, We forgot he lied! Hickory Trickery Dick

• If the Republicans will stop telling lies about Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them."

• Paraphrasing Saki - "We all know that Republicans are wedded to the truth, but like other wedded couples they sometimes live apart."

• "In a recent rerun of "All in the Family," Archie Bunker boasted that he didn't need civil rights laws to get his first job-to which Edith responded, 'That's right. His uncle got it for him.'"

• Molly Ivins. "I've got news for the haters : Government is US in this country. Well, us and a lot of corporate special-interest money."

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