Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 2, No. 21 Liberals believe that if gravity is outlawed, people will float. Bill on Tap In one of the more stunning moves of his time in Washington, Bill Clinton has announced that President Clinton is opposed to legislation that would do away with Selective Service and no longer require young men to register with the government for any potential draft. You don't need to be reminded of Bill's history. Isn't this the same fellow who crawled under his bed at Oxford to avoid the draft during Viet Nam? We decided to look through the massive library of records we keep here at the Spiff Executive Plaza, towering over beautiful downtown Donelson, Tennessee for quotes and comments about Bill's distinguished military career. Opal Ellis, who was serving as Executive Secretary of the Hot Springs Arkansas Draft Board said that when Bill received his draft notice, he "went in and told me that he was too well educated to go [and] he was going to fix my wagon and pull every string he could think of." Bill himself said that he "came to believe that the draft system itself is illegitimate," and the L.A. Times found that Bill, out of all of the young men of his age that were drafted, was the only one "whose pre-induction physical was put off for 10« months." Why does Bill support the draft? Do they now serve Big Macs aboard our ships. Could it be that they let you play your sax in the Army now? We here at Spiff think it might be that going to Viet Nam and serving your country was good for everyone else but not good enough for Bill. Now that President Clinton and Bill are in charge of our armed forces, (or is it Boutros Boutros?) they want to keep the ability to draft young Americans to go and do the things that Bill Clinton was too much of a coward to do. Once again we are slapped in the face by the arrogance of these people. They were too good or too "well educated" to serve. ("They" does include our illustrious Vice President. It has been said that if he served in Viet Nam, it was because he served somebody's dinner.) Now that they are in positions of power, it's all right to make others do what they refused. It's sort of like Bill Clinton trying to tell us that we should respect and promote family values while being sued for exposing himself to a woman. Or President Clinton preaching the "politics of meaning" while practicing the politics of government takeover. Or Owl Gore applauding the work of government for opening earthquake damaged highways in California when it was a private contractor working with incentives to finish early that really deserves the credit. In a word, it is hypocrisy. The Trials of Judge Breyer "They can't be this dumb!" we at Spiff kept saying as we watched the events leading up to and during the announcement of Stephen Breyer as President Clinton and Bill's nominee to the Supreme Court. The administration has known since December that Justice Harry Blackmun planned to retire. It still took over four months for President Clinton to make up her mind on the nomination. When she finally did, Bill ran out to a hastily called news conference on a White House sidewalk (a sidewalk?) and announced the decision without even bringing Breyer in for the announcement. Well, they finally did decide to bring Breyer to Washington for a slumber party at the White House and a formal ceremony the next day. The only problem was that when Breyer arrived in Washington, he found that the White House forgot to send a car for him at the airport. So we were treated to the spectacle of watching a nominee to the Supreme Court try to hail a cab while surrounded by press people. Breyer found his cab and pulled away just as a van from the White House arrived, forcing the van driver to chase him around the airport. Such dignity. Since we have to go through these back and forth soap operas every time President Clinton and Bill have to make a decision, we think they should follow the example of the Vatican and lock everybody in while they are thinking and then send up a puff of tie-dye-colored smoke when a decision is made. It would, of course, have to be non-ozone-depleting smoke. In deference to the Vice President. Pure* Silliness Quick! Go to your kitchen. (Well, if you're reading this at work, you can wait until you get home.) Grab a box of something. Anything. Raw hamburger, Cap'n Crunch, margarine, or whatever you can find. Now look at the label. Thanks to our friends in the government's Department of People Who Are Smarter than You, we now have new and improved nutrition information labeling. Rejoice! The good people who bring us our food are forced by the govermnent to reserve space on their labels for the nutrition information label. The label tells you everything you ever wanted to know about everything you ever wanted to eat. You can find out how much riboflavin is in your Snickers bar, as though anyone eats a candy bar as a riboflavin supplement. There's now a label on meat that warns you to cook it first, as though we didn't already know that. Someone here at the Spiff executive plaza brought in one of those trendy bottles of water. It has a nutrition information label on it. Did you know that water contains 0 calories, 0 carbohydrates, 0 fat, and 0 protein? Did you know it provides less than 2 percent of the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances of protein, vitamin A, vitamin C, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, calcium, and iron? Did you know it contains less than 1 milligram of sodium per serving? Of course you did! It's water! We know that some people count their calories, and that others need to know certain ingredients for their special diets, but this is just another of the infinate examples of some people deciding that if it's good for them, it should be required of everybody. As long as the government is requiring that we know everything that's good for us, let's get the government to force food companies to label their products with tax ingredient information. But then again, if we really knew how much of what we spend goes to the government, we might not reelect the people who are responsible, and that would be bad for us. Right? *This article contains less than 10% real fruit juice, and was packed by weight, not volume. Some settling may have occurred during fax transmission. Dining with Bob Senator Bob Dole was the featured speaker at last week's Tennessee Republican Party Statesmen's Dinner. In his brief remarks, the Senate Republican Leader concentrated on an area of the Clinton Presidency that has particularly troubled us here at Spiff--foreign policy. Senator Dole correctly pointed out the glaring lack of leadership that President Clinton and Bill have displayed on the world stage, and rightly asked to what other country can we hand the mantle of moral leadership if we do not want it. China? Japan? Germany? None of these countries is either prepared or deserving of that role. Only we can lead. It is a shame that we currently do not. Of great pleasure to us here at Spiff were the awards for Statesman of the Year. This year, an award was presented to one person in each of Tennessee's nine congressional districts who has made a difference. We were so pleased because the award for the Sixth District was presented to Paula McCord, a loyal reader of WTLB and a great supporter of Spiff. Mrs. McCord has encouraged our work almost since the very beginning and makes a point of sending copies of WTLB to many of her friends. It was great to see her recognized for her work. We know you are reading this Paula, so congratulations. Quote of the weak: "You see, if we'd been lawyers instead of doctors, a long time ago--you see, lawyers are smarter--everybody would have already had access to health care." Joycelyn Elders Quote of the strong: "Reform of the justice system is too important to be left to the lawyers and judges." Chief Justice William Renquist Words to Live By is published every week at about this time by Spiff. You can send a fax to us here in the Spiff Executive Plaza, towering over beautiful downtown Donelson, Tennessee at 615-883-0435.