What Makes Me Laugh

Hiking with Dan (left) in Yellowstone this year

I knew things weren’t going to go well at dinner when Doug mentioned the French Open and Dan said, “I hate the French.” Sigh. Dan is one of our dearest friends, and we have a standing Friday night ritual of dinner and conversation. It’s just that sometimes the conversation goes down the proverbial drain.

Simply put, up until the last presidential election, Dan voted Republican. He voted for George W. Bush twice. So, it’s remarkable that Doug, who is a staunch liberal, and reads the New Yorker magazine for breakfast, has formed such a close bond with Dan.

Usually sports discussions can get us through the awkward political discussions. But I could tell that Dan’s disagreeable stance on the French Open (he asserted that the U.S. Open was much a much harder tournament) and then his challenge to Doug’s statement that tennis athletes and downhill ski racers are some of the best-conditioned athletes in the world, was making Doug bristle a bit. “So you hate the thing I love, huh?” Doug asked.

Thankfully, we were sitting at the bar, so raised voices didn’t bother anyone. Just me, who was sitting in the middle of the verbal volley, and trying to distract the two with banal observations about whatever floated up on the television screen above the bar. “Oh look, hockey!”

Our food arrived, and this lowered the tenor of conversation to statements like, “Wow, that’s a huge steak” and “this wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.” Anyway, I thought we were through the worst of it until Dan brought George W. Bush into the conversation. That’s when Doug really lost it.

First, Dan mentioned Obama’s Middle East speech. Fine, we could agree on that. Then, he said something about how Bush had given an interview recently and he was really happy not to have to deal with the “terror of the world” on a daily basis anymore. 

Oh boy. Now we are dealing with the word “hate” again, only this time from Doug, and then Dan lecturing Doug about how he shouldn’t hate people. I’m telling you, I kind of wanted to slap them both up the side of the head. 

In private, they both complain to me about how the other “talks too much and never listens.” Personally, I think they’re both guilty of that, and deliberate miscommunication, and maybe of having a second alcoholic beverage at dinner and pulling up their Irish (Dan) or Lithuanian (Doug) roots. 

If it was two women, well, just one of these conversations would end the relationship. But the wonder of male relationships (to me) is that they usually end up apologizing and picking up right where they left off. With the French Open.

Courtesy of CongressDaily:

“I feel so close to them, at one point I thought of allowing them to use my car and driver.”

– Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle commenting on his friendship with nutrition lobbyist Marshall Matz and his wife. He made his remarks at a Global Child Nutrition Foundation dinner honoring Matz Tuesday.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/congressdaily/fbp_20090305_7743.php

No matter how cynical I am about politics, Obama manages to make me choke up. During the inauguration, I sat on the couch and cried all day (for joy). So last night I resolved to feel hard-boiled about it all and readied myself for some good-old fashioned political analysis. I broke when Obama introduced, Ty’Sheoma Bethea, from Dillon, S.C. who wrote to Congress to ask for some help for her crumbling school. Watching a child express so much hope in her country made my inner cynic soften a little.

But it came rushing back with the commentators inanities during President Obama’s address to Congress. We watched the PBS coverage and there were some funny moments. It started during the pre-address coverage when one announcer stated, “Most presidents, a month in, are still trying to find the bathrooms.” Really? I can believe that about George W. but seriously, can’t we expect more from a president in a month than finding the bathroom?

Jim Lehrer, who runs a great evening news show, still can’t seem to figure out who is who in the new administration. During the inauguration he mixed up several cabinet members and last night he said, “We may need a playbook to get through this one.” Football announcers (with the help of their producers) manage to remember each and every one of the 1,600 players in the NFL. Maybe PBS needs to take a tip from them and have the Cabinet members wear numbers on their suits in order to remember them?

My favorite line of the address: “Nobody messes with Joe.” Umm… maybe that’s because Joe so easily messes up on his own?

But, the best part was saved for the end. Universally panned, Gov. Bobby Jindal’s rebuttal speech was a bad parody of an infomercial for the Republican Party. After every phrase I expected him to say, “And for only $19.99 you can get some decent tax reform too!” And what was that weird example of abuse in government spending — monitoring volcanoes? Surely he can do better than that. I would bet that the community of Anchorage, with plenty of room to worry about Mount Redoubt erupting again, would love to have a little money for volcano monitoring.

It would take too long tonight to remark on everything wrong with Jindal’s speech, including his lies about Hurricane Katrina, but I will say thank you to him for making the night so entertaining!