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Asia Buzz: Hold the Front Page
Comedians are having a field day over the U.S. election
By ANTHONY SPAETH
November 27, 2000
Web posted at 11:30 a.m. Hong Kong time, 10:30 p.m. EDT
Let's be totally up front. No humor columnist anywhere in the world can
concentrate on anything but the U.S. election, which, in case you've been
underwater in Australia, will now be decided by call-in votes to the Jerry
Springer Show. So let's drop any pretense of writing, and let the jokes rip.
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Poor Dick Cheney. Apparently he was doing perfectly fine until he saw a poll
reporting that no one could remember if George W. Bush had a running mate -- and
then it was ER time. Imagine DYING before you got BEATEN for the U.S. VICE-
presidency. That would call for a redefinition of the term "major league loser."
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ASIA BUZZ |
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Friday, November 17, 2000
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ASIAWEEK |
Intelligence
The story behind today's news from the editors of Asiaweek
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I'm mystified over the choice of Jim Baker as Bush's electoral point man. If I'm
not mistaken, George Bush Sr. promised in one of the 1992 presidential debates
to appoint Baker as a domestic policy czar, after which voters abandoned him en
masse. Baker actually ran Bush's 1992 campaign, one of the worst in living
memory. What has he been doing since, aside from sharpening his teeth?
Meanwhile, Al Gore is trying so hard to be presidential that he's sleeping in
the Lincoln bedroom in nothing but a red tie. His hatchet man is Warren
Christopher, which gives a peek into why so many people hate Democrats. (In the
biggest crisis in your career, would you turn to an alumnus of the Jimmy Carter
presidency?) The Gore camp was cheered by an analysis printed by many
publications positing that the candidate who gracefully conceded defeat would be
in a good position to win in 2004 -- until someone pointed out that newspapermen
have a wicked sense of irony. "Gore in 2004," oh yeah!
But you have to admit that Gore has poise, even if he reminds you of the high
school junior who, upon losing the student council presidency, refuses to admit
he ever really wanted it. Bush, in his public appearances, looks half-twitchy,
half-pissy. Which makes it difficult to imagine him negotiating, say, a Middle
East peace at Camp David. ("Come on Yasser, all I hear from you is Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem!") If this guy becomes President, they're going to have to
put a childproof cap on the nuclear launch button.
Come to think of it, electing Bush, a former sports-team owner as President of
the U.S. isn't such a good idea. Although it would be fun if, midterm, he traded
his celebrity foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, for Secretary of Health
and Human Services Donna Shalala. What do close friends call Condoleezza,
anyway? Bush is renowned for the nicknames he bestows on his inner circle, and I
imagine it will take an entire transition team to find a non-offensive one for
someone named Condoleezza. Most five-year-olds, however, could whip up an
interesting limerick about her.
In non-U.S. news, Alberto Fujimori's surprise takeover of the Japanese
government was stalled by a provincial Japanese appeals court, which ruled that
controversial ballots in Yamaguchi Prefecture would have to be counted by
chopsticks. Deposed Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, after fleeing to Lima, said
he'd soon pass a supplementary budget of eight gazillion yen for Peru. The
Japanese Economic Planning Agency fled with Mori, and the Nikkei soared.
And on the chad joke front: the African nation formerly known as Chad changed
its name last week to the People's Republic of Perforation. The United Nations
Population Control Agency sold the domain name Pregnant.Chad.com to a porn
dealer, but the South Dakota Supreme Court shut the site down after it posted a
photo of Al Gore wearing nothing but a red tie, which it deemed "major league
obscene." (Jim Baker squawked that the courts were again intervening in the
political process.) And Actor Chad Everett applied in a Los Angeles court last
week to change his name back to Charles, after failing to secure the name
Rupert. The Rhode Island Supreme Court, meanwhile, which had been weirdly silent
since Election Day, ruled than any mention of dimpled chads in the workplace
constituted "major league" sexual harassment.
Hold the front page.
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