There's Backwards and there's . . .

BurkeWords

Monday, October 6, 1997

For the first time, a toll-free number has been set up to find people who have been harassed by a sitting U.S. President. The number is 1-800-HARASS-U. Ironically, that was the same name as President Clinton's second college choice, right after Yale.

Caution: If you are going to call that number, learn how to spell! You've heard the old joke: Clinton, Kennedy and Quayle are in a spelling bee, who wins? Quayle, because he's the only one that knows that "Harass" is one word.

Well, guess what. A lot of other people don't know how to spell "harass" either. And the folks that own the International Bartenders School in New York City don't find it funny at all. It seems their phone lines, 1-888-HARRASS, have been logging numerous irate callers ever since billboards with the other number went up.

I used to work near all the major bookstores on Fifth Avenue where celebrity authors would show up and sign books. It was fun to meet people and get their autographs, which made good birthday and Christmas gifts. It was worth the time you had to stand on line waiting.

Waiting wasn't a problem for Hill fans. She signed 75 copies of her book. That's not exactly "lined up around the block". That's not even lined up out the door -- assuming they all showed up at the same time.

Fifteen minutes goes by so fast.

Yeah, that's why I go to Hooters all right. This ranks up there with the California strip clubs that had to install wheelchair ramps for their stages to accomodate handicapped dancers. And the Braille letters on the drive-up ATMs. (Granted, those make a little sense because you could have a blind depositer in the back seat.)

It looks like President Clinton will not get fast track authority to negotiate any agreements. Apparantly, the Democrats won't get behind him on this, and unlike NAFTA, the Republicans don't want to bother if the Democrats aren't going to bother.

Of course, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-Harlem) would have been an important player for Clinton to fall back on. Too bad that he got on Rangel's bad side when the President struck a blow to health care for the poorest, uninsured New Yorkers. Those patients are on the "fast track" from their beds to the street.

A group called Promise Keepers has been staging rallies in stadiums for some time now. This Christian organization has been calling on men to take responsibility for their lives and treat their wives and families better. For some reason, this has angered the folks at the National Organization for a representing the views of a handful of Women. Pat Ireland has called the group "un-Christian". And in a related story, the pot has called the kettle "black".

Al Sharpton briefly forced a run-off election to be held to decide the NYC Democratic Mayoral candidate. That was cancelled when the official tally of the vote finally came in. However, it still sapped the winner, far-out liberal Ruth Messinger, of some of her campaign funds, gearing up for a non-existent runoff, as well as proving to be an embarrassment, considering that she should have won the election in a cakewalk.

After the primary, Jesse Jackson congratulated Sharpton and reportedly told him, "What you did to Messinger, I can do to Gore." So Jesse thinks he can try it again. Jess, let me save you some time and money. Al Gore doesn't need any help taking down Al Gore. Al Gore is doing a good job of that himself.

And what Al Sharpton did was lose. I'm sure you can achieve the same result.

The first casualty of the free press has fallen. A reporter commenting on the press surrounding Chelsea (not even delving into her private life) was let go from the student newspaper.

Frankly, I agree with the guy. If you want a little privacy, don't come to school on a private 747.

And speaking of Chelsea, I got the following email recently:

To: cjburke@IO.COM

From: hoff@wsc.com

Date: 09/30/97 03:49:50 PM AST

Clinton has vowed to veto any Washington DC budget that has a school voucher feature. He says that we need to keep the faith in public education.

If he had so much faith in the DC school system, then why did Chelsea go to Sidwell Friends private school?

And finally, New York now has a Republican Governor and a Democratic Lt. Governor now that the Democrats have welcomed a new member to their ranks. Like a salmon swimming against the tide,

I wish Ms. McCaughey Ross nothing but the best and expect her to pop up again soon. And I'll be laughing at the New York GOP when it happens. There have been reports that everyone is glad to be rid of her, yet they were more than happy a few months ago to back her in a Congressional race. (She declined the offer to run for the House.)

She will have a problem with challenging Sen. Al D'Amato, however. As a Republican, she might have had a chance to force an embarassing primary challenge. As a Democrat, she'll have to run with the rest of the field, and there are heavyweights lining up.

Let me just add a word of caution for Gov. Al Pataki: Sir, I've taken you to task in the past for acting like an occassional moron, and I will do it in the future should events warrant it. For instance, I'm sure that you don't want to look anti-women and might tap a woman to be on your ticket. Keep in mind that three years ago, the same night you defeated Mario Cuomo, the population of New York overwhelmingly rejected Bernadette Castro in her bid for office.

Also, Governor, I will never forget the irony of you being the man who dumped "Betsy Ross" off the ticket.