Conference hydra::dave_barry

1046.0. "Getting Nominated to Republican Presidential Roundtable" by BOOKIE::chayna.zko.dec.com::manana::eppes (Nina Eppes) Wed Apr 30 1997 12:40

Dave Barry
Sunday, April 20, 1997

I recently received some  very exciting mail. And I'm not talking about a
sleazy letter from some magazine-selling outfit claiming I won a sweepstakes.
I'm talking about a sleazy letter from the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate,
Trent Lott.

Trent -- I call him "Trent"; he calls me "David" -- informs me that I "have
been nominated as one of Florida's 15 representatives on the Republican
Presidential Roundtable." Trent explains that the Roundtable is "a unique
group of only 400 Americans," and that "recently, a vacancy occurred"; he's
hoping I will "consider stepping forward to fill it."

"It's not often in life that one is called upon to lead," notes Trent.

This is true. The last time I was called upon to lead was when I was a
counselor at Camp Sharparoon, and I led a cabin of 12-year-olds on a nature
hike directly into the heart of what had to be North America's largest bee
colony. That was in 1966, and the swelling is just now subsiding on some of
those campers.

Of course the Republican Presidential Roundtable is not interested in a nature
hike. It is interested, according to Trent's letter, in obtaining my "personal
help and assistance in shaping and driving our Republican national agenda."

I do have some thoughts on that. I think that Item No. 1 on the Republican
national agenda would be to introduce a bill that would enable the Senate
Majority Leader to change his first name from "Trent" to something that makes
him sound more like the kind of strong legislative stud we want running our
Senate, such as "Dirk," or "Buck," or -- this would make me very proud to be
an American -- "Mojo."

My other suggestion for the national agenda occurred to me recently when I
read about a plan by the federal government to pay hospitals NOT to train
doctors. According to a New York Times article that I swear I am not making
up, the federal government is going to pay 41 teaching hospitals in New York
State $400 million of your tax dollars to stop training so many doctors,
thereby stemming "a growing surplus of doctors."

Perhaps your reaction to this program is: "Hey, if there's such a surplus of
doctors, how come whenever I try to see one, I have to sit in the waiting room
long enough to watch Rocky and all 14 sequels?" This shows why you are an
ordinary dirtball taxpayer, as opposed to a health-care expert. The Times says
that health-care experts greeted this plan as "brilliant." Bear in mind that,
in their field, they spend a lot of time around drugs.

My own reaction to the plan is that it would be perfect with one minor
modification: Instead of paying the $400 million to teaching hospitals, we
should pay it to law schools, on the condition that they promise to stop
producing lawyers, which already outnumber humans in some cities. Naturally,
because this is a free country, any given law school would always have the
option not to participate, in which case Army tanks would reduce it to smoking
rubble.

So those are my feelings on the national agenda. Unfortunately, I may not be
sharing them with Sen. Mojo Lott and the other members of the Republican
Presidential Roundtable, because when you get to page two of Trent's letter it
turns out that, in addition to my personal help and assistance in shaping and
driving the national agenda, they want 5,000 of my personal dollars. And
before I spend that kind of money, I want to consider what kind of deal I can
get from the Democrats.

As I understand it, the Democrats have a whole menu of options for
contributors. If you pay so much, you get coffee with the president; if you
pay more, you get to stay overnight in the Lincoln Bedroom; if you pay still
more, you get to use the Jefferson Bidet; and so on up the donor scale until
you reach the level of your major supporters such as Indonesia or Barbra
Streisand; at this level, you get the Executive Package, in which you get to
appoint an ambassador, veto a bill and launch a nuclear attack against the
city of your choice. Another plus with the Democrats is, it will probably turn
out that your donation is illegal, which means they have to give it back.

The downside is, if you give money to the Democrats, reporters will snoop
around and eventually link you to "Whitewater" -- there is no activity on
Earth, including erosion, that is not ultimately connected to "Whitewater" --
and President Clinton will issue a statement about you making these points:

1. He doesn't know you.

2. Well, OK, he does know you, but he didn't promise you anything.

3. Well, OK, he did promise you something, but it was not technically illegal.

4. But if it WAS illegal, the Republicans do the same thing all the time, and
we need to put a stop to it.

5. It was Chelsea's idea.

I don't need that kind of hassle. So I'm frankly thinking that maybe I won't
be donating to either political party. Bill and Dirk will just have to call on
somebody else to help them lead, somebody more in tune with the ethical
concepts involved in modern political fund raising. I hear O.J. is available.