Showing posts with label Steve Allen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Steve Allen. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 05, 2011

Republican Dumbth

The late comedian Steve Allen wrote one book that was more likely to bring tears of sorrow than of laughter: Dumbth, self-described as a catalogue "of a host of hilarious and sometimes alarming personal encounters with shoddy workmanship, bad service, failures to communicate, and the general breakdown in the capacity to reason".

Had he lived long enough to update his 1999 book, Steverino would have loved the following question-and-answer segment from the recent Republican National Committee debate, undertaken to find a new chairman. Current RNC chairman Michael Steele gives a less-than-impressive answer to the simple question: What is your favorite book?
“Probably my kitchen table,” said Ms. Wagner, misunderstanding the question as “favorite bar.” She corrected that to say: “I like George W. Bush’s new book.”
Ms. Cino chimed in with “To Kill a Mockingbird.”
After which Mr. Steele said, “War and Peace.” He then dashed off the opening line from, well, a different book: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”