Beating Around the Bush (3 page)

“Those are only the terrorists,” Cornblatt said, “and it’s costing us billions of dollars to protect our God.”

Rutherford asked, “What do you mean, ‘our God?’ Depending on our faiths, there are dozens of gods that we worship. Take Ireland, for example. The Protestant Irish have been killing the Catholic believers, and the Catholics have been murdering the Protestants. They are all the same people, except for their religion. If they can’t agree on who is the real God, how can anybody else?”

George, the bartender, tried to protect his bottles because he didn’t know where this was going.

Pearlstein, who was trying to stay out of the argument, said, “The Jewish religion has the true God, and that is why we are the Chosen People.”

“You may be, except Orthodox Jews don’t believe in what the Conservative Jews and the Reformed Jews stand for. They have an entirely different idea of what God thinks about women.”

Pearlstein said, “If we had been proselytizing back in 1300 BC like the other religions do now, the whole world would be Jewish.”

Cornblatt said, “When I was a kid I always asked God for something. He helped me if I didn’t do my homework or if I had a difficult test—and even when I asked for help after disobeying my parents. Every time I asked a favor I told Him, ‘I’ll never ask you for anything again.’”

I said, “There was a bully at our school named Sam Tufano, and after school he would chase me. I asked God to make me run faster than Tufano, and He never let me down.”

George said, “It’s time to close up—no more drinks.”

It was a good idea because we were just about to discuss God and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

I WALKED PAST the Soviet Embassy the other day after President Bush made his State of the Union Speech.

Over the years the Soviet Embassy was one of the most vilified buildings in Washington—and the most mistrusted.

There were several U.S. Secret Service cars in front of the embassy at all times. The FBI rented apartments across the street for its cameras and listening equipment. The CIA even built a tunnel from a house on a hill that went right into the embassy. We listened to everything that Moscow was plotting.

All a president had to do to get a standing ovation in Congress was call the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire.”

When criticized for our spy community’s vigilance, the State Department replied, “All is fair in love and the Cold War.”

I ran into Davidson, who takes the same walk every morning as I do. I said, “It’s pretty quiet around here.”

“It wouldn’t be if Bush had blasted the Russkies in his speech.”

I asked, “Is it politically correct to call them Russkies now?”

“What would you call them?”

“Our brave allies beyond the Iron Curtain.”

“But what happened to the days when we said the Russians were stocking nuclear arms and we had no choice but to do the same? That is why the president needs $200 billion for a new missile shield. The only enemies mentioned in Mr. Bush’s speech were North Korea, Iran and Iraq.”

I said, “The president should have said he needs the money to prevent the Russians from smuggling nuclear weapons in battered suitcases.”

“What made the Reds such an easy target for a State of the Union speech in the old days was that nothing in their country worked, and it was always cold.”

“We had a real enemy in those days. All we have now are faceless terrorists who will never have an embassy of their own because just before they open one they commit suicide.”

Davidson said, “I used to be afraid of Russian spies who hung out beyond those walls. Now when I see one on the street I
imagine he is either a defector or someone going to the Safeway to buy a
National Enquirer
.”

“How did the Russians become the number one good guys so soon after they were the number one bad guys?”

“It is easy, because Bush can get Vladimir Putin on the phone anytime he wants to—but Osama bin Laden never returns his calls.”

I WAS HAVING DINNER at the Darbys’ when Sheila Darby said, “Guess what Caroline wants to be when she grows up?”

We all looked at Caroline, who is sixteen years old. She said, ‘I want to be a whistleblower.”

“That’s an honorable profession,” I said. “But you have to work hard to catch a person who is up to no good.”

“That’s what I told her,” her father, Joe, said. “You have fifteen minutes of glory and then you can’t find a job.”

Caroline said, “Sherron Watkins of Enron is my role model. All the girls at school think she is fantastic.”

I said, “Whistleblowers have come into their own ever since Sherron spilled the beans. But no one at Enron backed her up. Whistleblowing is a very lonely business.”

Joe said, “I don’t want TV cameras on my lawn all day and all night.”

Caroline said, “That’s the part I like the most. I could be interviewed on the
Today Show
, and
Good Morning America
, and by
Tom Brokaw. He could say I was a member of the Greatest Generation.”

Sheila said to Caroline, “If you’re going to be a whistleblower you’re going to need a decent education. No one is going to believe you if you don’t have a college degree.”

Joe said, “There are corporate whistleblowers who report on their bosses stealing from the pension fund. No one in the company will talk to them at the water cooler anymore.”

Caroline asked, “How do I practice being a whistleblower?”

I suggested, “For starters, you could snitch on your fourteen-year-old brother Tommy.”

Caroline said, “I saw him smoking a cigarette outside Tyson’s Corner mall.”

I said to the Darbys, “She’s a natural whistleblower.”

Tommy was angry and yelled at Caroline, “I was not and you know it!”

Joe said, “If I were you, Tommy, I’d take the Fifth Amendment.”

Caroline said, “By the time I grow up, Sherron Watkins will have used up her 15 minutes.”

I replied, “Not necessarily. Don’t forget she has a book to write and her story will be made into a TV movie.”

Joe complained, “That means we’ll have to give up all our privacy. Sherron Watkins may be a very successful whistleblower, but there are thousands of tattle-tales whom you have never heard about. They lost their jobs and their health insurance.”

Sheila said, “I like what Caroline wants to do. If she can find a crooked accountant or a smarmy lawyer to rat out when she grows up we should encourage her.”

Tommy said, “I would rather be a crooked accountant. You make more money.”

Caroline told him, “If you were, I would send you to jail.”

Tommy retorted, “Says who?”

I interrupted and said, “I would rather have a whistleblower than a crooked lawyer in the family.”

Sheila said, “Wouldn’t we all?”

I FLEW DOWN to the Broward Public Library in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to do a book signing for a paperback I wrote.

Over the years I have done thousands of book-signings (well anyhow, quite a few). It’s even tougher than writing a book. Sandy Vanocur once told me, “You know you’ve been on the road too long when you’ve run out of quarters for the vibrating bed in your motel.”

I have had many adventures in my book-signing career. One of my favorites was when I went to a department store in Rochester. The books were set up in the lobby. By accident I received a copy of the instructions for the staff.

One employee was assigned to make sure the books were there. Another supplied the ice water. A third person was in charge of supplying the pens.

The last assignment on the list had to do with security. Written next to it was the notation, “Mr. Buchwald does not need security because he is not that well-known.”

When you’re flogging a book you sit in a lot of TV show Green Rooms, waiting to go on the air. I shared one in Chicago
with a chimpanzee that was holding on to his owner for dear life. I kept eyeing the chimp, and he kept eyeing me. Finally, his owner, a little old lady, asked me to hold him while she changed his diaper. At that moment I declared I was going to give up show business.

Sometimes on the road you are the victim of a breaking story, and they tell you they are going to bounce you off the air.

This happened in Detroit. A friend, Tony Kornheiser, was with me plugging his book. The producer came out and said, “We have to cancel both of you. We just invaded Grenada.”

I immediately said, “I just came back from Grenada.”

He said, “Then come on the air.”

When the producer left the room, Tony growled, “You lying SOB. You don’t even know where Grenada is.”

I said, “You have to think fast when you are out on the road.”

Jim Michener and I were good friends, though he outsold me in the bookstores by one hundred to one.

One time I was at a bookstore on Fifth Avenue for an autograph session. Michener’s
Hawaii
was displayed all over the window. My book was hidden all the way in the back.

I took off my suit jacket and looked for someone who worked there. I called over a stockroom boy and said, “You see all those Michener books in the window? Put them in the back and take the books in the back and put them in the window.” It was one of my greatest book-signing triumphs, and when I told him, Michener laughed and said he was wondering why everyone was going to the back of the store.

The toughest book-signing competitor I ever had was Sylvia Porter, the business author and columnist. I appeared with her at a book luncheon. She talked about bonds and I talked about Washington. After we both spoke, we signed books. I had two
people (my sisters) waiting to buy my book, and Sylvia Porter had a line that went around the block.

I learned from Andy Rooney that the only way to speed up a book-signing line is not to talk to anyone whose book you are autographing.

That is what I did in Fort Lauderdale. Flogging one’s book is a dirty business, but somebody has to do it.

AS YOU READ THIS COLUMN, there is a “shadow government” somewhere in the bowels of the mountains of Maryland, where people are stationed to keep the country going in case of nuclear war. I’m not sure how long these officials have to remain underground, but it is the toughest job in the country.

This is what it must be like:

The officials are having dinner in their cave.

Marty Muggeridge says, “I am supposed to be the shadow president this week.”

Hal Haige says, “It’s my turn. You were president last week.”

“No one ever lets me be president,” Gonbalt says. “I’m tired of being the shadow environmental Cabinet officer.”

Hogan, the standby homeland security director says, “I want everyone to be stripped before I allow them into the cave.”

The standby attorney general says, “I want to practice military tribunals, just in case. If I ever have to be the real AG, I’m going to take away all the people’s rights.”

While they are eating, Artie Bear, the backup secretary of defense, comes in the room and says tearfully, “Someone has been sleeping in my bed.”

The ersatz secretary of the treasury says, “And someone was eating out of my bowl.”

The substitute secretary of state says, “Someone has been sitting in my chair.”

The stand-in attorney general says, “This is a case for the FBI.”

The surrogate CIA head chimes in, “We have a tip that it is Goldilocks, the shadow secretary of labor.”

The substitute AG says, “Let’s round up anyone in the cave who looks suspicious.”

Nancy Hubbard, the backup national security director says, “I went to the cupboard this morning and it was bare.”

The alternate OMB director says, “There was nothing in the budget for the cupboard. You should have stocked it with pork.”

One of the shadow White House officials says, “We’re not supposed to do anything until the balloon goes up. But there is no reason why we can’t practice damage control.”

“How can we have spin if we don’t have a press secretary?”

“I’m here,” a man at the end of the table says. “I can give you all the spin you want.”

As the shadow men and women are talking, someone enters the cave. The secretary of defense asks the secretary of state, “Who is that?”

“Beats me. I never saw him before in my life.”

The shadow homeland security director says, “I better keep an eye on him.”

The pseudo-secretary of agriculture says, “He looks exactly like Vice President Cheney.”

It
is
Vice President Cheney,” the substitute secretary of the treasury says.

“Then what is he doing down here?”

The CIA man replies, “They want him out of sight, and what better place than with the shadow government?”

Haige says, “If the real vice president is here, then I can’t be the shadow vice president.”

“You can be the shadow secretary of commerce.”

Haige says, “I’m always getting the wrong end of the stick.”

SOME OF THE LARGEST and most patriotic American companies are incorporating in the Caribbean to avoid paying income taxes. Billions of dollars are being deposited in such places as the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.

The slogan for the companies is: “Our stockholders, right or wrong.”

There is such a rush on overseas deposit boxes that they are sought after by everyone. As soon as one becomes available, every self-respecting tax evader bids on it.

Here are some of the top boxes now being advertised:

“A beautiful safe deposit box, overlooking the blue waters of Turtle Reef. Enough room for a million dollars’ worth of tax-free cash or bonds. Perfect for someone who is just starting out in business.”

Another ad reads, “This box is located in one of the largest
banks on Grand Cayman Island. It originally housed offshore money from the Enron Company. A steal since the company went bankrupt. It is more than a deposit box—it is a room with its own laundromat for laundering tax money worth more than $10 million. The room comes in mahogany, and has two sets of electric locks, just like the ones at the Federal Reserve.”