Words to Live By Since 1993 A SPIFF Publication Vol. 3, No. 19 What this country needs is a good, five-cent nickel Warren Remembrance (It's more like forgetfulness!) If you were watching the news during Bill's recent trip to honor one of the few nations that murdered its own people during World War II on the 50th anniversary of V-E Day last week, you have heard of the flap that occurred when Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole rightly called Bill's trip a failure. After we kow-towed to the Russians and offended the British, we got zippo for our efforts. No halt to the slaughter in Chechnya, No scrap of Russian plans to sell nuclear equipment to a terrorist outlaw state, Iran. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. In fact, Bill sat impotently as Boris Yeltsin lied to the world and said there was no war in Chechnya, even in the face of the television pictures that come into our homes every night. As we said, Senator Dole correctly termed this a disaster. Dole's comments were met with the following stunning response from the always-outgoing Secretary of State, Warren Christopher: "You know, in my generation there was an old-fashioned custom that Americans did not criticize the president when he was abroad. The thought was in those days halcyon days that there would be time enough when the president returned home to assess his performance." Huh? Go ahead, take a moment and read it again. You got it right, someone connected with Bill Clinton had the nerve to discuss criticism of a president's foreign policy while the president is on foreign soil. This policy does not, of course, apply to students who are angling first to get out of serving their country, then spend the rest of their life angling to win the White House. It is nothing less than revolting to have anyone in this administration complain about criticism of a president or American policy from another continent. Does Christopher remember who he works for? Even if he does work for President Clinton, you would think that anyone even remotely connected with Bill would stay a few thousand miles away from the topic of criticizing American policy in this type of situation. As revolting as it is, let's delve deeper into this little blunder. Compare, if you will, Senator Bob Dole_veteran of World War II, severely wounded while serving in Italy, and a victim of constant pain from his war injury_to Bill Clinton_heroic commander of the Arkansas National Guard and draft evader in England during Vietnam. Who, in your mind, has earned the right to criticize a misguided foreign policy? Who between these men has earned the mantle that comes with sacrifice for country? You be the judge. We can only imagine the cringes that shuddered through the White House when word of Christopher's comment reached Washington. Now that President Clinton is apparently about to resurface as defacto head of the reelection effort, she must have hit the ceiling. As offended as we were by Christopher's comments, it did give us a little joy to see this issue come back, once again, to haunt Bill Clinton. You Can Always Tell a Liberal But Not Much You may recall, a few weeks back, we told you that one of our goals, now that we run almost everything, is to point out the hypocrisy that runs amok in the hearts of libs. Then, we pointed out the confusion we have from Bart Gordon voting for 80% of Speaker Newt's Contract with America. As you know, it is our philosophy that there are two kinds of liberals_evil libs and just plain dumb libs. For example, Daffuhzit Jim was an evil (if now powerless) lib. For a dumb lib, you must look to someone like Senator Carol Moseleybraun. They are the kind of people you see on television and wonder how they got there. Into the former category, we have already placed Bart Gordon. You know and we know that there is no other reason for his support of 80% of the Contract than his political survival. It has finally hit Bart that his views in no way resemble those of his constituents. He must change (or fake it) to survive. In the latter category, we are happy to place Our Congressman Bob Clement. We place Bob in this spot not so much because he supported 70% of the Contract (Strangely enough, by this gauge, he is more liberal than Bart Gordon.), but because he does not realize that when he attacks the Contract, he is criticizing 70% of his own votes on these issues. In a recent interview, O.C. Bob was asked to describe the atmosphere in Washington now that the Republicans are running the show. His response was to mention the Contract with America, "or as some of us call it, the Contract on America." (Oh, yeah, that's original, Bob.) Of course, Bob then, in the same sentence, proceeded to announce that he had supported 70% of the Contract items. Doesn't this make perfect sense to you? When asked how he voted on term limits, O.C. Bob informed us that he voted for the proposal even though he is opposed to the idea. Why? Votes! How can anyone who isn't a complete fool sit there and tell you that he is opposed to something he supported 70% of? How can he sit there and tell you that he voted for something he is opposed to? Someone who isn't a complete fool wouldn't. At least Gordon is smart enough to stay quiet about his votes while he criticizes them. Aren't these guys fun now that they can't do anything to us? Quote of the weak: "Keep your greedy, budget-cutting hands off our Medicare system." Ted Kennedy Quote of the strong: "They all sound like Pat Buchanan now. But only one of us sounds like him all the time, and that's me." Pat Buchanan 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.