From: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.perot,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Fonts of Wisdom
Date: 31 Aug 92 19:35:04 GMT
Reply-To: egl1@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (Elizabeth G. Levy)
Organization: Columbia University

FONTS OF WISDOM

by Barry Tarshis

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 ralize 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.

[anyone want to do, say, Buchanan, Pat Robertson or Mr. Marrou? :-)]




--
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.
			-- T.S. Eliot, "The Wasteland"