Clever how you got ol' Quayle in there, I must admit.

I loved it, but refresh my memory: Who's "Herbie"?

Thanks guys. Michael - I thought someone would ask, but I didn't think it would be you. But anyway, it's Herbert Hoover. Ok, a scapegoat for the depression perhaps - but I couldn't think of anything else to put in place of "rainbows". Thanks again fellas. bob

Was this President Warren G Harding circa 1923? `````````` "Sing a song to Teapot Dome, remember Harding's stay What could he have" ````````` What could he have done in the short amount of time he was in office? Not familiar with the teapot thing but for cryin' out loud the Florida recounts lasted longer than his entire administration. He died in office about 30 days or so after innaugeration. ??? Or did I mis-identify who this was?

it was william henry harrison who died 30 days into office

No Guy - you are correct. Harding is the guy. He was president for two years - 1921-23 I believe. His administration was known for scandals - Teapot Dome being the most famous. I think - and I could be wrong on this - that songs were written about the scandal - hence the line "Sing a song to Teapot Dome, remember Harding's stay". Hey, I had to come up with something - I wrote this around "And Danny added "e" to our starch" - couldn't get that line out of my head. bob

TD is right - but Harrison was a Whig. When he died, so did the Whig party.

My bad on that one. Could have swarn that was Harding. But I am not a history major. I just finished looking him up. Seems all of his scandles came to light after his death. One had to do with Naval oil reserves in Ca. Sounds somewhat familiar. What can I say? Not all Reps are good and not all Dems are bad.

I thought he was a Rep. He must have been the last Whig to assume the office. It was GOP after that I think. Anyway history says he died of a heart attack in San Francisco in 1923 but "Harding's name was further blackened by a book by Nan Britton and by unfounded rumors that he had committed suicide or been murdered." So now I get it. He just 'whiged out'.

No problem - but Guy, did you really think that I would put something in a parody without checking? I mean wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of my liberal biased parodies? After reading your last comment, I went and looked up Nan Britton - pretty interesting stuff - almost literally caught in the act, help by the secret service, alleged poisoning by Harding's wife, etc. But I'm also a bit confused by your joke - Harrison was the last Whig president - so I missed the "Whiged out" joke. Anyway, Harrison also was the first president to die in office. Shit, all of this and my parody wasn't even that good. Learned a lot though. bob

May I come out of the broom closet now? :-o

Well, I am a history major, and Harrison was not the last whig...Millard Fillmore was the last Whig....it was after him that there were only dems and Republicans......Harrison died 30 days into his presidency from pneumonia (sp?), which he caught on the day of his inorgeration(sp?) when he was on a boat in the Potomic....Harding was involved in the Tea-pot dome scandal, but if you ask most students what that is today, they will have no clue.....and, as far as I remember from American history, the scandal was uncovered while he was president....most of the other scandals in his presidency were related to this one.....the Whig party was given its last rights in 1850 when a third party known as the Republicans were rising up, and were basicly dead by 1865 when most of them switched parties to Republican....does this help?

No, you're right on the Whigs - my mistake. Harrison was the first Whig president not the last. However, I wasn't aware that he was sworn in on a boat on the Potomac - are you sure about that one? (I'll have to look up that one.) And I'm not sure most students today know what Watergate was, but that doesn't make that scandal any less of a crime.

Oh - The intent was not to question the authenticity of what you wrote in your parody. I just wondered how many people knew who everyone was in your parody. I knew all of them when I read it. And I mistook your reference to Harrison as being a Whig. I assumed Harding was a Whig for some reason and assumed he would have been the last. I should have known that because I knew that Lincoln was republican. Anyway the whiged out remark mean kicking the bucket in this case. Sorry for the confusion. I think we all are learning a little history from this. And watergate does not bother me. I could not wait for Nixon to leave office. My opinion is that he was not a good president. I got the same feeling when I heard him speak as I did always with Clinton. An overwhelming feeling of being lied to. So there are good and bad in each party. Do you guys ever vote for a republican? I always look at the issues and the person running. Party makes little difference to me. I think we all would be a lot better off if we all voted responsibly. After all we vote for the candidate and not the party. Labor unions have a way of getting a block vote going for a particular candidate. These voters often times are like sheep being led to the slaughter. Whoever thought that making one 'X' on a ballot and calling that voting also has 'valuable' land to sell at a reasonable price. That is if you don't mind alligators too much.

Guy - nor did I think you were questioning the authenticity - I was joking with you about me writing without checking - I just refuse to put those damn smiley faces at the end of each sentence. And even if you were checking the factual basis, I would appreciate it because, again, my bashing wouldn't be credible if it wasn't factual. Now I understand the Whig comment, but Watergate still bothers me. The closest I ever came to voting republican was Reagan/Carter/Anderson - I voted for John Anderson - a mistake as it was actually a vote for Reagan - I was young and naive. While I used to consider myself a liberal, the impeachment and the last presidential election left a bad taste in my mouth - so I'm now a liberal civil libertarian. By the way, I've decided to throw my support behind Don Novello - Father Guido Sarducci - in the California gubernatorial election. Hey, I've enjoyed the back-and-forth. bob

Ah - Father Sarducci - He was a say wonce onna saddaday night live that inna the catholic church, we maka moaney the olda fashion waze. We play a bingo. I'd love to see Don Novello run for it. I agree with you on Clinton. I have a military background and after Clinton, I was for anyone who treated the military with the respect that they deserve. Bush does do that. The Florida absentee vote proved that.

Well, you and I may agree on Don Novello (he actually is running, I read today), but I was upset that Clinton was impeached. You're right, Bush does treat the military with respect - as it should be. I'm a little upset that those serving don't have First Amendment Protection, but that's another story (Doonsberry has been doing a number on this one - see today's strip). There's also a cute cartoon in today's (New York) Daily News that I think we call all agree on - it's on the Editorial page (by Marshall Ramsey - he's syndicated so it's available elsewhere). Anyway, it's a picture of Gary Coleman, Ah-Nold, Larry Flynt, Saddam Hussein, and Mr. Ed - there's a banner above them that says "Live California Governor's Debate" - next to it is a picture of a member of the US military on the phone saying "We found him." Hey, Mr. Ed wouldn't be a bad choice - if he were alive. Wonder if SNL is still in touch with Mrs. Ed.

Hold on, I need to clarify something lol...Harrison was not sworn in on a boat lol..he just happened to be on the boat the same day as his inorgoration....and I agree, even though many kids dont know aout Tea-pot dome (or Watergate) it doesnt make it lose any of its importance....both of them should be taught better in school....and lastly, even though I dont live in California, I support "Gallagher for Governor!" He'll smash the competition!

Ok, Billy - Clarification accepted. I believe that, at the risk of starting another thread, he was the only president who had somewhat of a medical background - I think he was stuyding to be a doctor - making the cause of his death almost ironic . And, ah Billy, by the way (and we let this slide on your first post) it's "inauguration" - perhaps you'd like to relocate to California and throw your hat in - I'm sure we could all pitch in and come up with the $3,500 for you to run. Or you could be Ah-Nold's running mate - he could talk and you could spell. I'd still vote for Father Sarducci though.

"I'm a little upset that those serving don't have First Amendment Protection". I was in the military for 21 years. (USAF) I would have been upset if we had these rights. Your life could depend on another person to follow orders and not yell about their rights. There is no place in the military for democracy. Everyone depends on everyone else to do their job, especially in hostile theaters where you could likely die in a target rich envoronment. There is only one instance that comes to mind where democracy works within the military and that is once every four years the military members get to join with the rest of the citizen population and decide who is going to be their commander in chief. They actually get to vote for the guy who can order them to die for their country. This is the thing I hated about Gore the most. Up to this point I was trying to give him a fair shake. He tried to nullify those absentee votes, which were mainly military . He intended to refuse the voting right. to those who he could order to die vote that right. This was heinous. Clinton treated the military so badly and then this stunt Gore tried to pull made me think he also had contempt for the military. I thought it ironic justice that those military absentee ballots actually made the difference in the end in the 2000 election. Some may not agree but in the end using the system we have to elect the president, the office was decided by a handful of military people. I don't think I want a president who would mess over the military just to get into office. Makes me wonder how else he would abuse them. They suffered enough under Clinton.

Well, never having served (but never having dodged either), it's hard for me to debate the point with an insider. So I won't, even though I started the fire. To me, the Constitution (specifically, the Bill of Rights) covers all Americans. I loved your line though: "There is no place in the military for democracy." Wasn't there something else about the military ballots in the last election? I'd have to go back and look it up (as a child of the 60s my memory is bad) - I thought that their ballots came back late or there was some other problem. I would say that the Supreme Court, not the military ballots, made the difference in the election. But isn't it great that because we live in a democracy we can freely express diverse opinions? (such as ours). And, as you so correctly pointed out with respect to choosing the guy your going to die for. Hey, I love to argue support for Gore, but he disappointed me. To me he should have swept the floor with "Dubya", the election should have been a slam dunk in my mind. He didn't, it wasn't - so I won't defend him.

The thing with the military ballots is simple, kind of. There was noise made about these ballots being late and most likely they were late. But they were only late arriving. These votes were cast in late September or early to mid October. Every election period every military unit appoints an election officer. This person contacts everyone in that unit for the opportunity to vote. These votes are certified to have been cast well in advance of election day. So it would not matter if the votes came in late, the fact remains that they were cast before the election. The military officer performs all the duties that people runnng the polling places perform. He/she ensures that voting laws and regulations are adhered to. I could guarantee that no funny business went on with these ballots. The check and balance would not allow it and the several thousand votes that came to Florida probably had almost as many election officers that processed them. You have to figure that there are four branches of service with thousands of military units. Figure that the average unit had 500 personnel. Each unit may average 8 people from Florida and of these 8 maybe only 3 or 4 actually vote. No one person handled all of these votes or vote tallies. Conspiracy as they were trying to indicate - never could happen.

Ah, now I remember - although I think I was just so enraged at the whole election, I didn't pay too much attention to the specifics - very unlike me. Hey, no doubt it was a tactic. I thought that the military absentee votes (in general, that is) would have been a higher percentage of the voting population.

Thanks for the spelling correction....I knew I wasnt spelling it right

My numbers are a wag. Not sure what the percentage actually is. I would assume it is much higher in the presidential than in other elections. Military people being away from home don't usually keep up with local and state matters. I was trying to illustrate the ratio of election officers to voters in a certain local in order to show just how many different hands were controlling those ballots. Not much chance of it ever becoming a huge conspiracy and who would have known six weeks before the election just what those votes would have meant. Catching that election detail is a yawn job anyway for any officer in the military. They just basically do it and get it over with and get back to what they were doing before they were interrupted by it.

My numbers are a wag. Not sure what the percentage actually is. I would assume it is much higher in the presidential than in other elections. Military people being away from home don't usually keep up with local and state matters. I was trying to illustrate the ratio of election officers to voters in a certain local in order to show just how many different hands were controlling those ballots. Not much chance of it ever becoming a huge conspiracy and who would have known six weeks before the election just what those votes would have meant. Catching that election detail is a yawn job anyway for any officer in the military. They just basically do it and get it over with and get back to what they were doing before they were interrupted by it.

I understand. I was just thinking that in a general presidential election, fewer than 60% of the poplulation votes - I just thought that the percentage among the military would be higher than the general population in a presidential election. What was the reason these votes were late? I think it was some legitimate reason - like the mail boat couldn't or didn't make the rounds when it was supposed to - I'll have to look that one up when I get home.

Not to nitpick, but there was a second General elected President by the Whigs, Zachary Taylor in 1848. Better General, better man, better President (barely). What really destroyed the Whigs was their split over slavery. One more item on this subject, and then I'll move on: In America, the Whigs were the nation's more conservative party from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s when the Democrats moved right and the Republicans became the liberal party (shock, huh?); while the British Whigs were a liberal party.

As Alice Roosevelt Longworth, daughter of a President and cuckolded (and then cuckolding) wife of a Speaker of the House (some things never change), said, "Harding was not a bad man, he was just a slob." Harding was just plain dumb. He spoke in empty platitudes and let his cronies rob the country blind, without knowing what was really going on. Sound familiar? I'm surprised he didn't let anarchists destroy the Woolworth Building on his watch. He was still popular at his death, but that didn't last long. Most observers of the subject now consider him one of the worst Presidents, though he has his defenders. Pat Buchanan once wrote an interesting column on his accomplishments, though it was a reach.

Anybody who cuts veterans' benefits has no respect for the military. But then, Bush proved that as early as 1972. Of course, thanks to Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, ALL of the nation's ballots were "absentee." All 104 million of them. As for Gore trying to "nullify military absentee ballots," if they were postmarked after November 7, they were just as void as if they were from somebody who wasn't registered to vote. Hence, any postmarked November 8 or later should not have counted. Of course, none were really counted, since the Supreme Court decided we were going to have an appointed President instead. Gore showed his true colors by volunteering to serve in a war he was not called to serve in, and which both he and his Senator father fought against as best they could. And I don't want to hear "bodyguard." If there was ever a war where that was meaningless, it was Vietnam, as the Tet Offensive proved.

Suffered under Clinton? War in Haiti, won without firing a shot. War in Bosnia, won without losing a man. War in Kosovo, won without losing a man. Somalia? Fed millions, and fewer men lost there than in Grenada, a "victory" that benefited no one except Ronnie. The Cole? Lost fewer there than in the Mayaguez, or the Beirut Barracks. And when the boys came home, there were Clinton jobs to come home to. Now? They'd better re-up through mid-'05 if they want jobs after they're discharged.

Well, as I said, I'm not going to debate military. I'm a pacifist - I believe that Iraq was as unjust as Vietnam. I also believe that if you're going to impeach a president for getting oral sex, then you should impeach a president for lying about why we got into Iraq. And, if as the republicans said, it wasn't the act it was the lie, then I believe we have another lie here. My problem is that the democrats aren't doing anything about it - and not that they could with the current Congress. As a New Yorker, I want Bill as Mayor. Hell, I want him as governor. I've got an idiot running the country, a moron as governor and a nut as mayor.

Loved it!