Upholding the tradition of the office...
There's an old rule in politics that might well
be called "The Cool Hand Luke Rule," after
the 70's film starring Paul Newman, Cool Hand
Luke.
In the film, Newman is an inmate in a southern work-camp, and during a late night poker game, he bluffs his way to winning the pot over a straight flush with nothing but a pair of deuces.
His friend and protector in the camp, portrayed by George Kennedy, realizing that Newman won the hand with no cards at all, asks him...
"How'd you do that, you didn't have nothing !"
To which Newman replies, giving title to the film and to the book...
"Sometimes, nothin' is a pretty cool hand."
That is what we thought of last night, as we watched the attempted drama of the "unveiling" of the results of the Whitewater investigations on ABC Niteline with Ted Koppel.
The Republican Senators, led by the morally pure child of God Sen. Alphonse D'Amato, made every effort to turn a pair of deuces into a royal straight flush, but he hardly managed to get together a full house.
The allegations presented lacked any substantial variation from the norm in previous administrations going back to colonial times, ranging from attempts at using the Oval Office to solve the personal difficulties of the individuals occupying the White House (Dear God in Heaven, will the free world crumble ?) to using FBI dossiers to look into the private lives of selected members of Congress.
We always thought there was an orientation for new Presidents when they assumed office that kind of looked like this:
You got the juice, baby. Might as well use it.
- Foreward by Huey Long.
"What's the point of going into politics if you can't help your friends ?" was an old favorite saying of the The Kingfish. It's not so much who you know, it's whom you owe. -
How To Win Friends and Obliterate Your Enemies
by The Kennedy Brothers John and Bobby. These zany Harvard grads came down from Boston with more than a few ivy league tricks up their sleeve, and they knew how to use them, too. With the advice of their robber-baron daddy, the Kennedy boys knew how to serve high tea and perform jugular laceration at the same time. - We Recommend DIGITAL Recording Devices by now-dead ex-president Richard M. Nixon, the Republicans leading (and only) candidate for sainthood. For lack of technology, an empire crumbled, and a life dedicated to public service ended in shame and humiliation for all involved. "My kingdom for digital insert-editing twenty years ago." (Maybe if you had funded research instead of intrigue, you might have had one, Dick.)
-
The Freemason Phone Directory Easy access to the only
people who really matter. Hardly household names,
this handy guide will ring you directly into boardrooms and
portside staterooms where true power resides. Ask, and you
shall receive. So will they. (By the way, if the phone rings,
don't answer. It's not for you.)
June 16, 1996 Charles Paparella All Rights Reserved