From: APUCORLE@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Drinking Fountain Politics
Date: 29 Sep 92 16:47:13 GMT


Drinking Fountain Politics:
(copied w/o permission from the NY Times, Monday 8/31/92, p.A15)


Imagine that a network morning show has assembled six political
heavyweights for a call-in show.  A teacher phones to report that
during a recent class tour of the White House, a student wanted a
drink of water, only to discover that the fountain was out of order.
The teacher asks the panel what message a broken fountain at the
White House sends to the young people of America.  Let's listen to
the answers.

Ross Perot: The question here is simple: how do we fix it.  I say,
let's bring together the finest plumbing talent in America -- from
outside the system.  Let them look at the fountain.  Turn it on.
Turn it off.  Measure the flow in it.  That sort of thing.  And you
can be sure, the next time you take a White House tour, you're going
to drink from a world-class fountain.

Jesse Jackson: Let us not talk about this broken water fountain.
Let us talk about the thousands of broken water fountains across
America.  For they, too, are broken, like the broken dreams of
America's forgotten children.  And whether you are black, white,
brown or yellow, you cannot use them.  Why?  Because the Republican
Party is more interested in Perrier water and Pellegrino water than
it is in public water.

Al Gore: I love my country.  And I love water.  And I love the
children who drink from the water fountains in the country I love,
and that my father loves.  And I believe in my heart that the time
has come, now more than ever, for all of us to be inspired by the
young people of America whose dreams for the future depend on our
ability as a nation to provide them with the water that is the
essence of their survival.

Dan Quayle: I am very, very sympathetic to the disappointment
young people in America feel when they go to a water fountain in
the single most important building in America and cannot drink from
it.  Because I too, would be very, very disappointed if I were to
go to get a drink from a water fountain and discover that, because
of the Democrats, the water does not come up.  Water is a terrible
thing to waste, when there is thirst but no water, that is a terrible
thing.

Bill Clinton: I grew up in a home where public water fountains
were very important to me and to my family.  And I have put forward
a plan similar to the plan I introduced to Arkansas.  This plan is
good for America.  It takes the $4.25 million savings we realize
when we eliminate the 10 percent reduction on the capital gains
that exceed $30,000 in any given one-year period for Americans
under the age of 31 who graduated before 1984, and it allocates
18.5 percent of that sum to paying for 80 percent of the new
fountain construction.

George Bush: O.K.  Sure.  Fine.  There's something wrong with a
water fountain in the White House?  Not denying it.  Have to be a
fool to deny it.  But make no mistake about it.  There is a lot
that is right with it, too.  And that's one thing I want to focus
on, you see, not what's bad about the water fountains in America
by what's good about them.  And with the help of the American people
and a Republican Congress I can work with, I can make the water
flow again in the water fountains of America.

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| Phil Corless           | Bitnet: APUCORLE@IDBSU              |
| Boise State University | Internet: APUCORLE@IDBSU.IDBSU.EDU  |
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|          Money is a lousy means of keeping score.            |
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