Everybody has a specialty.
Like butchers know a skinny flank from a juicy rump. A talent that has been utilized when producers test starlets but that a high-class person such as myself cannot confirm.
Plumbers? True ability. Even if they can’t close a kitchen leak, they can open a client’s wallet.
Hammock makers? Their expertise lies in getting Kim Kardashian’s bra size.
But other than Albany pols, who are doing more time than drug dealers, my question is: What’s it take to be a politician?
Besides free dinners, never picking up a check, cheap suits, red ties, plastic gumsoled shoes and the ability to tap dance on TV interviews — what are the job’s requirements?
Step 1 is nailing a book publisher who’ll vamp until the person’s out of office — like Hillary, Bill, Cheney, Robert Gates — then pee on everyone and make legitimate money.
However, France has its own code.
DSK’s dipped his pen in ink so often it could someday run dry like an old Bic. DeGaulle’s bodily skirmishes were not always on the battlefield. About cozy Sarkozy and his busy wife, we know. And there’s its current president yutz with the longtime live-in mistress but diddling another one and unsure whose bones to tuck into the Lincoln Bedroom for his DC visit.
America’s different.
We’re strong. Tough. Our wronged political wives don’t end up in ICUs. They stand behind their beauties. Our women smile while their gents apologize for sticky fingers or sticky other parts. Why? Because we’re upstanding, loyal, wonderful.
E Pluribus whatever. That’s the American way.
Monogamy? Spitzer would say it’s not an issue.
Honesty? Alan Hevesi didn’t think it was essential. Making a baby with another lady while you’re married? John Edwards might snort, “B.S.”
History books reveal that others who did this type of work included Thomas Jefferson, Woodrow Wilson, Grover Cleveland, Warren Harding, JFK, Ike Eisenhower, Gary Hart, about George Washington I’m not sure.
Yankees like their leaders to have red blood.
Said purple-blooded Newt Gingrich: “Men are biologically driven to go out and hunt giraffes.” Also wives. He’s had three.
Nobody cares about Dan Quayle — but since he misspelled “potato,” you know IQ is optional.
Ditto a sense of direction. South Carolina’s ex-governor Mark Sanford was hiking an Appalachian trail in Argentina.
I’ve heard of a little boy who wouldn’t play with his Christmas toys. He preferred sitting in the family rocking chair. One day he rose and announced: “Mama, when I grow up I want to be in politics.” Answered Mama: “I understand that because now I can see you’re finally off your rocker.”
But we need government. Plus geniuses to run it. Not just because we want to get them off the street on account of they can’t find other work. That’s mean. Maybe true — but mean. This greatest democracy on Earth requires people to run it. How else could we get the trains to run on time or the George Washington Bridge backed up?
I have taken to Wagnalls and his pal Funk. Looking up “statesman” and “diplomat” brought forth definitions of “politician.” 1: “Derogatory” term. 2. “Suggests the schemes and devices of one who engages in politics for his own advantage.” 3: “One more concerned to win favor or retain power than to maintain principles.”
My thesaurus parses “politics” as “noncommittal . . . artful . . . wary . . .” and adds, “See ‘caution. ’ ”
In the words of somebody — but I forgot who — “To err is human. To blame it on the other guy is politics.”
“The Stupidest Things Ever Said by Politicians,” Page 148. Texas Sen. Phil Gramm wanted “immediately [when] his plane arrives” to have “an official greeting party” welcome him . . . approach, form a receiving line . . . walk to him” so he needn’t walk toward them.
And he was a ’90s presidential nominee.
Have this one: “Be sure he’s a ruthless son of a bitch . . . will do everything he’s told . . . will go after our enemies, not our friends.” Not from the throat of Chunky Gov. Christie. Out of the 1971 tonsils of Richard Nixon.
There’s nobody left to run a country but Dennis Rodman.