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Jewish World Review March 12, 1999 /24 Adar 5759

Larry Elder

Larry Elder
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Where are the angry geezers?

(http://www.jewishworldreview.com) SO, WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?

Some bureaucrat in D.C. uses the word "niggardly," and he resigns. Golfer Fuzzy Zoeller makes a crack about blacks and fried chicken, he loses $2 million in endorsements. But President Clinton disses old people, and nothing. Nothing! Where's the American Association of Retired Persons? Where are the Gray Panthers? And Sen. Strom Thurmond, who weighs in at nearly 100 years old, hasn't uttered a peep.

It's one thing for Juanita Broaddrick to allege that the president, when attorney general of Arkansas, raped her. I can understand our collective yawn over that one.

And, sure, we all experienced discomfort during the Monica Lewinsky/Barbara Walters interview, where we learn that Monica rates the president a "good kisser." And where we also learn that the president, when he removed his shirt, sucked in his stomach. And that she desperately wanted intercourse, but he resisted. That Monica told the cigar story to 10 of her friends. And that, according to Monica Lewinsky, the president, a lonely man with a tough job, needed some, you know, "peace of mind."

Just two gals talkin’
Few of us are getting exercised about Lewinsky's new book, "Monica's Story," where we read about her disgust toward independent counsel Ken Starr because of the level of "detail" he sought, a specificity that "sickened" poor Monica.

(Of course, it's different merely telling 75 million Americans about cigars, the president's stomach, his ability to kiss, his loneliness and her thong-bikini gambit -- a k a a "small, subtle flirtation." This stuff made the Starr report read like the 23rd Psalm.)

No, I speak of the lack of outrage, anger and indignation over the president's remarks about ... old people! Our senior citizens, who survived the Depression, fought World War I, World War II and the Cold War. They're the very people for whom we're saving Medicare and Social Security.

What am I talking about? See, according to Monica, the president dismissed the possibility that he and she might have a future together. Not because Clinton is already married or because he didn't have true feelings for her. Nor because the prez wanted to spare Chelsea and Hillary the indignity of watching him take up with an intern his daughter's age.

Clinton's reason for shooting down the warm image of the ex-commander in chief and Monica riding off into the sunset? The president said, "What are we gonna do when I'm 75 and have to pee 25 times a day?" Peeing 25 times a day? What a stereotype. Can you say ageism?

Listen up, AARP. Somebody please fax the Gray Panthers. Senior citizens of America, unite! The president just said you 75-year-olds "pee 25 times a day"!!

I needed an expert. My dad turns 84 in May. So I called him.

"Dad, this is a little, uh, delicate, but how many times per day do you, uh, go No. 1?"

"Gee, I don't know, never counted."

"I know, Dad, but humor me."

"Let's see," he said, "I probably go about once every three hours."

"So, assume you stay up 16 hours, we're talkin' maybe five times or so."

"Yeah, I think that's about right."

So now, I pounced. I told my dad what the president said. For a man, I said, who "feels our pain," who defends the poor, the sick, the aged, the infirm, the minorities, the women, the blind, the deaf, how could Clinton diss you this way?

To this, my dad said, "Doesn't matter to me what he thinks."

Oh, sure, cover up for him. Never thought I'd see the day. My dad, part of the vast left-wing cabal, blindly defending the president. Imagine having a James Carville or a Lanny Davis -- in my own family!

I tried another angle.

"Dad," I said to my lifelong Republican father, "suppose Nixon or Bush or Reagan had said, 'Hey, I don't want to be gumming down my oatmeal and dribbling on my walker as I attempt to get out of my handicapped-parked car.

That's why I can't take up with you.' What then?! If a Republican president had said this, Dad, they'd be calling it 'Seniorgate.' Wake up, Father. Smell the prunes!

"If Hillary has to apologize to women for her 'bake cookies' remark. If Jesse 'The Body' Ventura goes on Letterman and then apologizes for making a joke about drunken Irishmen designing the city of St. Paul. If Jimmy 'The Greek' Snyder loses his gig because of his drunken theory on the superiority of the black athlete, why then, Dad, should the president escape the wrath of our offended geezers, er, seniors?"

"Larry," my dad said, "sounds like you have way too much time on your hands."

Up

03/05/99: Is the president a rapist?
03/02/99: So, how was your flight?
02/18/99: Life in the Clinton gloat-free zone
02/16/99: The fur coat death notice
01/29/99: A Malcolm X postage stamp? What about George Wallace?
01/21/99: Racism is only a conservative problem, right?
01/18/99: Police brutality? What about policy brutality?
01/04/99: The NBA slam-dunks taxpayers
12/28/98: "Evil" Republicans impeach Clinton
12/21/98: On to the Senate!
12/10/98: Will the real America stand up?
11/30/98: Save the children:tax the poor
11/30/98:Ken Starr and the vast left-wing conspiracy
11/19/98: Will the real hypocrite stand up!?
11/13/98: The Clinton 400
10/23/98: My evening with Chris Rock
10/15/98: Slavery is not funny
10/02/98: Clinton --- friend of the working woman
9/28/98: George Washington vs. the Grand Jury
9/18/98: It's the perjury, stupid
9/14/98: The "Larry List" of the most fascinating women in politics
9/07/98: Why blacks shouldn't support Clinton
8/27/98:The Brown bomber strikes Justice Thomas
8/21/98:So very clintonesque
8/17/98: Gary Coleman, hate criminal?
8/07/98: How much mea culpa?
7/24/98: ATM Al?
7/24/98: Advising the advisors
7/17/98: Camille Cosby's carelessness
7/9/98: Moses mugged
7/2/98: Al Campanis -- forever a racist?
6/25/98: And you thought "coke" was worse than smokes
6/19/98: Is Jasper ‘America'?
6/12/98: Guess who's not coming to dinner
6/5/98: What now, NOW?
5/29/98:What's next, ‘burger busters'?
5/21/98: 'Stuff' happens
5/18/98: This just in
5/11/98: Stepping up
4/30/98: Who's faking whom?
4/23/98:PRESIDENTIAL HOOP DREAMS
4/16/98:To spank or not to spank
4/10/98:TWA: TEACHING WHILE ASIAN

©1999, Laurence A. Elder