Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Revise and repeat*

Compare and contrast:

"You know how the tournament goes, and how the teams go. They go from 64 to 32 to 16. Kind of like my poll numbers, folks."

--Gubernatorial hopeful Tom Reilly, at the March 19 St. Patrick's Day Breakfast. (Thanks to Jon Keller for the transcription.)

"Everybody's excited about March Madness, the big NCAA tournament? Here's how it works: It starts at 65, then 64, then 32, then 16. It's just like Bush's approval rating."

--David Letterman, in his March 14 monologue. (Click here for video if you'd got Real Player.)

Not that it's a great joke or anything, but still.

*NOTE: While I'd originally titled this post "Reilly's Biden Moment?," I didn't actually think that Reilly's recycling of Letterman's schtick was truly problematic. I plead guilty to overstatement! (Obviously, Massachusetts politicians aren't the only ones who have trouble being funny.) Anonymous, thanks for calling bullshit on this, and also for pointing out that Reilly was hardly the only politician to recycle yesterday.

3/21/2006 6:50:54 AM by Adam Reilly | Comments [1] |
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Tuesday, March 21, 2006 11:04:16 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Yeah, the joke is a clear rip-off -- like half of the jokes at the St. Patrick's Day breakfast every year.

Check this link for Senate President Travaglini telling one of the oldest jokes in the book, slightly modified:
http://www.telegram.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060320/NEWS/603200469/1052/RSS01&source=rss

Then there’s state Senate President Robert E. Travaglini. The Boston Democrat told a zinger about Presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush all facing a terrorist firing squad.

To divert attention so he could scamper away, Carter yelled “tsunami” when he went before the guns, Travaglini joked.

Clinton followed suit and screamed “tornado” before running away.

“Now Bush, he’s smart. He’s going to figure this all out,” said Travaglini, a Boston Democrat.

When Bush got in front of the guns, Travaglini said, the president yelled “fire.”

That joke is as old as it gets. My point is this. If a candidate plagiarizes substantive stuff (like Biden did in 1988) and real chunks of speeches, then it's bad news. Adapting jokes is par-for-the-course and hardly a "Biden moment" - heck, most of Deval Patrick's policy positions are "Biden moments" of policy agenda pieces from Health Care for All, MassPIRG, Cape Wind, and other organizations...

Anonymous

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