Scene - Blogs - How one Oklahoma senator figures into a Stupid Conservatives book

How one Oklahoma senator figures into a "Stupid Conservatives" book
Published: 5/29/2012 3:57 PM
Last Modified: 5/30/2012 10:57 AM

"You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent ... I'm not joking." -- Sen. Joe Biden on the C-SPAN series "Road to the White House," June 17, 2006

That little quote is among many amusing -- and occasionally alarming or down-right face-reddeningly embarrassing -- statements from politicians and celebrities in "Stupid Liberals: Weird and Wacky Tales from the Left Wing" ($9.99, Andrews McMeel) by New York Times bestselling author Leland Gregory.

Before my liberal friends get their unmentionables in a wad, "Stupid Liberals" is a companion book to Gregory's "Stupid Conservatives: Weird and Wacky Tales from the Right Wing."

Each book is a catalog of quotes -- many funny, others not-so-much (but no less interesting) from politicians, journalists and others from their respective sides of the bipartisan fence.

"Stupid Conservatives" even features a quote from Oklahoma's own Tom Coburn: "I favor the death penalty for abortionists and other people who take life." Apparently, when he was a Senate candidate in the summer of 2004, he said this during an Associated Press interview. (As Gregory writes, Coburn admitted to performing two abortions himself as a doctor to save the lives of mothers with congenital heart disease, but he opposes the procedure in cases of rape.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, "Stupid Conservatives" pokes fun at Sarah Palin and George W. Bush; but "Stupid Liberals" spreads the non-love with jabs at my beloved Mississippi ("The Harrison County School Board ... banned a Jewish student from wearing a Star of David because it was feared that it would be mistaken for a gang symbol."), TONS from President Barack Obama ("Come on! I just answered, like, eight questions!") and this little nugget from former Illinois Gov. Rob Blagojevich when he was on MSNBC Jan. 1, 2010: "I'm blacker than Barack Obama. I shined shoes. I grew up in a five-room apartment. My father had a little Laundromat in a black community not far from where we lived. I saw it all growing up." Ummm ... 'K ...

In parting, I'll leave you with this gem from "Stupid Liberals," a quote from Congressman James Traficant of Ohio to photojournalists covering his House ethics subcommittee hearing in July 2002:

"If you don't get those cameras out of my face, I'm gonna go 8.6 on the Richter scale with gastric emissions that'll clear this room." Classy, huh?

Anyway, ask your favorite bookseller about either book.

Peace, love and politics ... XOXO

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Living Wright

While other kids were watching "The Smurfs," Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright was tuned in to "Style with Elsa Klensch." By fourth grade, he knew he wanted to write, and spent almost three years publishing a weekly teen-oriented magazine, Teen-Zine -- circulation: 2. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, he became the medical reporter and teen board coordinator for the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, a Gannett newspaper. Eight months later, with visions of Elsa dancing in his head, he applied for the fashion writer position at the Tulsa World, where he began working on Aug. 3, 1998. He is now a general assignment reporter for Scene.

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