Funny Business

Lest We Forget...

As you go about your daily ritual of taking kids to school, plying a trade, cooking meals, and calling the record store to check on the release date of Eddie Fisher's long overdue comeback album, let us not forget that for one frightening moment last month it looked like Dan Quayle WOULD BE PRESIDENT!!

Official news reports have once again overlooked the telling, behind-the-scenes events that only H'rumphs reporters could uncover. For example, moments after President George Bush experienced chest pains on a Camp David jogging path, frantic Secret Service agents at the White House were trying to locate key government officials. An unnamed source revealed that, after a half hour of checking most of the rooms, an agent finally discovered Dan Quayle in the Oval Office turning 'round and 'round in the president's big leather chair and seeing how long he could keep both legs up high.

As expected, Chief of Staff John Sununu exercised his usual calm in the midst of crisis. Informed of the president's health problems, Sununu immediately took a helicopter to Andrews Air Force Base and loaded his golf clubs onto Air Force One.

Moments later, former Reagan Chief of Staff Alexander Haig dropped by the White House and offered, in the interest of national security, to hang around for a while. But his visit was marred by a struggle that developed between him and the vice president when they both tried to answer the Oval Office phone at the same time. Secret Service agents were able to pry the phone from their grip, but not before the collect call from Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev had been lost.

"Pump Up Your Bwains, Too"

Arnold "I-Stopped-Taking-Steroids-As-Soon-As-I-Got-Famous" Schwarzenegger was in Washington, DC last month in his impressive new role as Chairman of the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. A film actor of enormous prestige (he made such classics as Conan the Barbarian, Twins, and the dramatically challenging Kindergarten Cop), Schwarzenegger led a group of photogenic Republican teens in a series of aerobics in the backyard of the White House and then spoke to the changing needs of America's young people. Vocalizing in his trademark Elmer Fudd baritone, he called on teens to develop "not just your bodies, but also, and more important, your minds."

Underscoring his new commitment as a role model to intellectual development, Schwarzenegger then returned to the set of his upcoming film, Terminator II.

Hey, We Get Them Mixed Up All The Time...

In the third paragraph of an article on former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, the Fitchburg-Leominster (Mass.) Sentinel and Enterprise incorrectly identified Gov. Dukakis as Mike Tyson.

Now, Mike Tyson is a friend of ours, and Gov. Dukakis is no Mike Tyson.

"It's Not Our Fault They Don't Want to Buy Our Crummy Cars..."

General Motors was unusually forthright in explaining its first quarter loss of $1.5 billion. The automaker blamed it on the consumer. "If Americans had bought more cars, our losses would not have been so great," a GM spokesperson declared.

Well, that clears that up.

And Finally...

Republican leaders have been busy denying the persistent rumors that Ronald Reagan's campaign staff delayed Iran's release of American hostages until after the 1980 election. Reporters have raised disturbing questions regarding the whereabouts of certain Republican operatives around the time of the Carter/Reagan race, and have quoted unnamed sources claiming that military aircraft were mysteriously dispatched to Iran on several occasions during the month before the election.

Newly released Pentagon records seem to refute those assertions unequivocally, however, by showing that, in fact, no military aircraft were available the entire month of October 1980. John Sununu had checked them all out for a family reunion in the Bahamas.

Ed Spivey Jr. is art director of Sojourners.