Of Jets, Voyeurs and Back Wax
By GAIL COLLINS
NYT
Our challenge today is to discuss politicians who get in trouble for extravagant spending, and to do it without mentioning the Republican National Committee’s expense-account party at the bondage club.
When times are tough, people always try to depict the opposition party as dining on triple helpings of truffles while the rest of the country has Hamburger Helper. You may remember that during the presidential campaign, there was a rumor that Michelle Obama had checked into the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and sent down to room service for “lobster hors d’oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and Champagne,” as The New York Post reported before retracting the entire story.
This sort of thing goes way back. After the Panic of 1837, President Martin Van Buren was ruined by gossip about banquets where he and his guests ate with golden spoons. A congressman from Pennsylvania claimed that Van Buren was landscaping the White House lawn “to resemble AN AMAZON’S BOSOM with a miniature knoll or hillock at its apex to denote the nipple.”
O.K., this does bring us back to the bondage nightclub.
(More here.)
NYT
Our challenge today is to discuss politicians who get in trouble for extravagant spending, and to do it without mentioning the Republican National Committee’s expense-account party at the bondage club.
When times are tough, people always try to depict the opposition party as dining on triple helpings of truffles while the rest of the country has Hamburger Helper. You may remember that during the presidential campaign, there was a rumor that Michelle Obama had checked into the Waldorf-Astoria in New York and sent down to room service for “lobster hors d’oeuvres, two whole steamed lobsters, Iranian caviar and Champagne,” as The New York Post reported before retracting the entire story.
This sort of thing goes way back. After the Panic of 1837, President Martin Van Buren was ruined by gossip about banquets where he and his guests ate with golden spoons. A congressman from Pennsylvania claimed that Van Buren was landscaping the White House lawn “to resemble AN AMAZON’S BOSOM with a miniature knoll or hillock at its apex to denote the nipple.”
O.K., this does bring us back to the bondage nightclub.
(More here.)
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