Posted on Friday, November 8, 2024
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by AMAC, Robert B. Charles
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15 Comments
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Will Rogers (1879-1935) was a funny man. Born long ago this month, he was a comic, and never funnier than when lampooning Congress, turning stuff upside down, hopeful but a realist. Today, as I peeled apples for applesauce, my mind wandered to Rogers, and what he would say about our mess.
Neighbors in Maine gave me apples – way too many. They grow all kinds, Empire, Honey Crisp, MacIntosh, you name it. Peeling apples, I pondered life, politics, humor, and how they relate. Like honey, cinnamon, and apples, they mix, but sometimes make a mess. Still, I am hopeful.
You know, God organized the seasons just right, figured out how to make sunshine, get rain to fall, trees to grow, and apples to taste good. Congress cannot organize anything except reelection.
Will Rogers had a wry wit. Even today, it fits. He said what he thought, and pointed out ironies. These days, they pile up like yellow, red, and brown leaves, soon enough like banks of snow.
Said Rogers, “Democrats are the only reason to vote for Republicans.” He just wanted some competence, authenticity, honesty, and maybe a bit of lighthearted humor in the nation’s leaders.
He might be surprised at 2024. He wrote: “I would love to see Mr. Henry Ford in there, really. I don’t know who started the idea that a President must be a politician, instead of a businessman. A politician can’t run any other kind of business, so there is no reason why he can run the U.S. … biggest single business in the World.” Bingo!
Lighter still, he thought politics was expensive, and that was when a dollar was worth a hundred. He wrote: “A fool and his money are soon elected,” “America has the best politicians money can buy,” and “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”
Fearing the end of humor, looking at how politicians behaved, he quipped: “Everything is changing. People are taking their comedians seriously and the politicians as a joke.”
Watching education slip in the 1920s, he proposed a simple plan. “Instead of giving money to found colleges to promote learning, why don’t they pass a constitutional amendment prohibiting anybody from learning anything? If it works as good as the Prohibition one did, why, in five years we would have the smartest race of people on earth.”
When complimented on being a funny man, he said: “It’s easy to be a humorist, when you’ve got the whole government working for you.” Ba-dump-bump!
Not big on the government spending his money, he was clear. “Politicians are just a bunch of local bandits sent by their local voters to raid the public treasury.” Today, banditry is legal.
On election integrity, he poked both parties, would understand how Harris hijacked Biden while he slept: “More men have been elected between sundown and sunup than ever were elected between sunup and sundown.”
As I got to the bottom of my apple bag and finished peeling, slicing, and depositing apple chunks into my saucepan, hopeful Washington may somehow get on track, another Rogers line drifted back.
Then as now, his wit rings true. Looking at the mess around me, hopeful something good would come of it, I thought of Rogers. He summed life, politics, and humor this way. “I tell you folks, all politics …is applesauce.”
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC. Robert Charles has also just released an uplifting new book, “Cherish America: Stories of Courage, Character, and Kindness” (Tower Publishing, 2024).
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