Dave Barry Slept Here: A Sort of History of the United States (15 page)

When news of this got out, there was a big scandal, culminating in marathon hearings by the Joint House and Senate Committee to Bore Everybody to Death. The highlight of these hearings was the testimony of Oliver North, a marine lieutenant colonel who was considered the key witness because he had been single-handedly operating the executive branch of the federal government for several years while everybody else was in meetings. In a dramatic televised moment, North, his eyes moist and his voice shaking, revealed to the committee that he was a courageous patriot, after which he became so overcome by emotion that he knocked over his bottle of Revlon eye moistener.

Eventually, the nation overcame the trauma of Iran-contra and went back to reading the sports pages. And Reagan was soon able to “bounce back” from the scandal by going to the Soviet Union, which is in Russia, and signing a historic agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev that enormously enhanced the prospects for world peace by prohibiting either side from ever publicly noticing the huge mark on Mr. Gorbachev’s head.

Meanwhile, however, new problems were beginning to form. Chief among these was the federal budget deficit, which was mounting at an alarming rate. Both the Reagan administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress had tried a number of possible solutions—increased government spending, having the government spend more money, increasing the amount of money being spent by the government—but that darned ol’ deficit just would not go away. On top of that, there were other serious problems such as the AIDS epidemic, the Greenhouse Effect, the trade imbalance, drugs, illiteracy, Geraldo Rivera getting his own TV show, and so on. Obviously, the nation was in desperate need of bold new leadership and vision, which was too bad because the next scheduled event was …

THE 1988 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

This time the Republicans, determined to show the nation that they liked a joke as much as the next person, nominated George Bush, who selected as his running mate young “Dan” Quayle, a Vietnam-era veteran who had received the coveted Round Smiley Face decoration in recognition of the time he accidentally stapled his sleeve to the desk and was trapped for nearly two hours.

Clearly this was a ticket that even the Democrats would have a difficult time losing to, but they worked at it and managed to come up with the ideal candidate in the form of “Mike” Dukakis, a man who, because of a tragic genetic defect, was limited to the same basic range of expressions as an iguana. He’d be making a speech, and he’d start to raise his voice, and it would look like there might be some actual emotion going on inside him, but then suddenly his tongue would flick out to snare a passing insect, and the whole effect would be ruined.

But you also have to give a large pile of credit to Bush and his top political strategist, Darth Vader. Their campaign, conducted via highly informative television commercials, focused on the issues that were certain to be of vital concern to the nation in the years to come, especially:

The pledge of allegiance. Furloughed rapist Willie Horton. The budget deficit, and whether it could be corrected by forcing furloughed

rapist Willie Horton to say the pledge of allegiance over and over. For

fifty years.

When election day rolled around, tens of millions of American voters, impressed by the level of debate, went to the mall. But some of them also cast their ballots, and the Bush-Quayle ticket was swept into office with a clear-cut popular mandate to please not have another election for at least four years.

That is where we stand today. And what lies ahead? Will we be able to solve our social and economic problems, clean up our environment? maybe even improve our technology to the Point where we can land a manned spacecraft on Trump? Unfortunately, we cannot know what will happen in the future. If this book proves anything, it’s that we don’t even know what happened in the past. But we do know this: America is a strong and great country, and her people have withstood many trials and tribulations (More tribulations, actually, because many never went to trial.). And whatever problems lie ahead, we may be sure of one thing: that if we all work together and “hang tough,” there will come a day when this nation—maybe not in the next few years; maybe not even in our lifetimes; but someday—will see the end of “Dick” Nixon’s political career. But we wouldn’t bet on it.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. How about we go get a beer?

INDEX

A

Anal Compulsive Party, 57

B

Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato, Samuel, 78 Bono, Sonny, 143 Booger, as dog name, 132 Buster and the Harpoons, 137

C

Calamari, “Nicky the Squid,” 153 Camp Sharparoon, 37 Carlisle, Kitty, 57 Celtics, Boston, 91 Charles “Chuck” IV, King, IX Consumer, Mr. and Mrs. Joe, 124 Cosine, the, 140 Cummings, e. e. “buster,” 106

D

Dead, Grateful, 122 Del-Vikings, 56 De Rigeur, Juan Ponce, ix “Doodle, Yankee,” 41

E

Enormous swimming rabbit attacks Jimmy Carter, 161

F

Fashion Statement of 1787, 46 Fondue in the Colonial Era, 35 Franklin, Aretha, discovery of, 148 Franklin, Benjamin, emits drool streamer, 47

H

Harding, Harding G., 105

I

island, Gilligan’s 150

J

Joke, knock-knock 132

L

Large, by and, 94 Leghorn, Foghorn 149 Long distance, invention of, 76 Louis the Somethingth, 29

M

McGraw, “Quick Draw,” 81 Midnight Surprise Fruit Wine and Dessert Topping, VI Moby-Dick vs. the Atomic Bat from Hell, 65

N

National Tractor Mechanic Awareness Week, 49

O

Orbison, Roy, and Kennedy assassination, 149

P

Pig, Porky, 151 Pinto Beans of Lust, The, 115 Piper, Peter, 130 Pistons, Detroit, 5 Pooper, party, 146 Pope Bilious XIV, IX Pouty Pants, Mister, 163 S Scary-Looking Women with Hatchets, 97 Skywalker, Luke, 81 Small Hairless Nocturnal Rodent party, 96 Soup, cock-a-leeky, 7 Spam, 128 Spasms,5

T

Tenants putting things in toilets, 43 Tuna casserole, military effectiveness of, 89

V

Vader, Darth, 174

W

Warren, G. Harding, 101

Z

Zedong, Mao, 154

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

DAVE Barry was described in The New York Times Book Review as “the funniest man in America,” a claim he has been quick to disavow, except for the plaque on the front door. Nevertheless, the reviewer got there late: The Pulitzer Prize Committee had cited him for commentary earlier in 1988, and he got off with an appropriately light sentence (Even earlier, in 1986, he won the Distinguished Writing Award of the American Association of Newspaper Editors, but what do they know?). Apart from these facts—which, as Mr. Barry occasionally Puts it—we are not making up, the relevant details seem to be that he writes for The Miami Herald and is syndicated in approximately 150 other newspapers, several of which make money despite this.

Barry lives with his wife, Beth, and son, Robby, in a Coral Gables, Florida, house surrounded by giant mutant spiders.