President John F. Kennedy frequently told audiences: "There are three things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third." Nobody in recent American politics ever did more with and for laughter than former Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who sadly left these mortal precincts, altogether too soon, not quite three years ago.
I'll never forget her opening line as guest speaker at Washington's Gridiron dinner, where the assembled male guests are decked out in formal white tie and tails and most women wear long gowns: "So this is what y'all do on Saturday night up here. I can't imagine why anybody thinks you're out of touch ..."
The nation was introduced to Richards, then the Texas state treasurer, when she gave the keynote address at the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta. With her signature Lone Star state twang, she tweaked that year's Republican nominee, the New England-born-and-reared vice president: "I am delighted to be here with you this evening because after listening to George Bush (Senior) all these years, I figured you needed to know what a real Texas accent sounds alike."
As the commencement speaker at Mount Holyoke College, she told the graduates that she came "from a short line of women governors," which included Texans Richards and Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson, who initially had run because her husband, Gov. "Pa" Ferguson, had been impeached.
The big issue of "Ma" Ferguson's governorship was a major controversy over whether children "were going to be punished for speaking Spanish in the public schools." According to Richards, Ferguson explained her position this way: "If the English language was good enough for Jesus Christ, it (is) good enough for the schoolchildren of Texas."
In her 1994 losing re-election race against Republican George W.
Bush, a campaign remembered for the disproportionate attention paid to the grave, and imaginary, threats to Texas gun-owners and the 'menace' of homosexuality to this proudly masculine state, Richards told the legislature that she would veto a so-called right-to-carry law then being pushed hard by the gun lobby, which argued that the women of Texas would feel much more secure if they were able to carry a weapon in their pocketbooks.
In the heat of political battle, Richards, as reported by the late and great Molly Ivins, did not lose her sense of humor: "Well, you know that I am not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag."
There was much wisdom along with that wonderful wit. Speaking from her experience as the mother of four, she informed her audiences: "Let me tell you, sisters, seeing dried egg on a plate in the morning is a lot dirtier than anything I've had to deal with in politics." And as a former junior high school teacher, she put her political life in perspective: "Teaching was the hardest work I had ever done, and it remains the hardest work I have done to date."
She encouraged women to overcome the obstacles to political engagement, reminding her listeners: "Ginger Rogers had to do everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in high heels."
For straightforward perspective, Richards was tough to beat: "I'm really glad that our young people missed the Depression and the big war. But I do regret that they missed the leaders that I knew, leaders who told us when things were tough and that we'd have to sacrifice, and that these difficulties might last awhile. They brought us together, and they gave us a sense of national purpose."
Her state, her nation and her chosen profession of politics — and all of us lucky enough to know her personally — were all profoundly enriched by Ann Richards. In the dreary, humorless politics of 2009, we miss her more than ever.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
COPYRIGHT 2009 MARK SHIELDS
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Sir;...The reason humor so often fails us is because there is nothing ultimately funny about the futility we experience at the hands of our government, which touches those in politics and out, and feeds only the vanity of our elected leaders...I think humor is essential...If you could turn the Joke around about the new wife being asked if it was her first time, and ask a politician: Have you ever been unduly influenced by money before; the answer could be the same...Why does every body always ask me that??? We do not have democracy, equality, or justice; so we must forever seek an advantage over those with money to have government that stand with us against the rich and the powerful...What makes the rich powerful but their control of the laws and government??? America loved Lincoln, and loves him still, in part because of his visual sense of humor... He was an average sized torso on extra long legs, and he had a grasp of the ludicrous, the small man in big shoes sort of thing...More importantly, he had an understanding before his time of how irrational people really are as Baudelaire, Nietzsche, and Freud were later to recognize... Reason alone is not sufficent to make people good, or enough to change a person, or their mind...One must make people feel different to make them think differently, and nothing works so well, or so quickly in this regard as humor...Part of the problem with this country is that we are so much peopled by protestants who are simply humorless, and dour, and pessimistic... I stand with the few who look at all who are going to heaven because they tried; and I am surrounded by those who see us all going to hell because we were predestined for that fate...I used to work with a drunken little Sioux who would say: Efem if they can't take a joke... Sorry man; but no one has a sense of humor....Lay a hand full of thousands on a line, and say it is for the one who gets there first, and see how many smiles you see...The more the rich will break the law -and cross every moral injunction for a million, the more little Joe might cut your throat for a nickle...Bit by bit, the humor is being drained out of this place...We watch the Three Stooges at an advanced age, and see not humor, but three rich guys teaching the children of America to act like idiots...Is Adam Sandler different??? Are the two parties different??? The Romans divided everyone...No nation, nor geography was left intact out of the fear of any united peoples...Divide and Impera they said... For what are we being divided???Where is the humor in hate??? Where is the humor in envy, in jealousy, in fear, and loathing... Where is the fun in frustration??? Since unity, and consensus are not needed to hold office, or to conduct business, the opposite goals are sought, and achieved -of sowing division, and encouraging enmity...Look at how long the slave masters of the South held political power in this land by virtue of the representatives given to them by the constitution for a fraction of their slaves...As poor whites fled the South, and as immigration brought poor whites from Europe, and as whites in the North had children, the Masters could see their hold over their slaves, their wealth, and their political power slipping away; and the humor drained right out of them...With every addition to our country, with every legal and illegal immigrant we lose political power to the rich, and we sense it... We cannot protect ourselves from manipulation of our economy, high interest or rents... We cannot protect ourselves from pollution, from foreign wars and adventures, from imports, or low wages...Our representation does not remain constant, but is constantly diluted, and as it is, we lose our power, our rights, our money, and our humor...Let the politicians laugh, but the people are sweating Nitro like rotten TNT, and becoming dangerous, and volatile as the republican stooges run riot... Thanks...Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Jul 11, 2009 6:18 AM
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