Republican Date Night
by Dave KonigNewt Gingrich is much taller in person than he is on TV. The lovely Bride of Konig (author of I Wear The Maternity Pants In This Family – www.susankonig.com) and I were invited to a screening of the Newt and Callista Gingrich – produced documentary Ronald Reagan Rendezvous With Destiny the other night, and we got to meet the former Speaker of the House. For some reason I always thought he was on the short, roly poly side. TV’s short, roly poly is, in person, tall, barrel chested and imposing. This is, oddly, the exact opposite of me. On TV I am tall and thin, in person I’m short and fat.
Reagan, Judy Garland, Henry Fonda, Boris Karloff, Gene Kelly
This rare date night out without the various Spawn of Konig, naturally coincided with a gig for me: as my wife was settling into the Director’s Guild Screening Room on W. 57th. 72nd street performing a comedy sketch with TV host extraordinaire Bill Boggs in his live show Talk Show Confidential. The cue for my sketch with Bill is the end of his Richard Nixon anecdote. Boggs tells a very funny story of being a teen-aged intern in the 1960s on a talk show, and the guest is Richard Nixon. Boggs is assigned to Nixon, to make sure Nixon gets to the set on time. En route, Nixon makes a pit stop. Young Boggs is then confronted with his first major, television talk show crisis: how to tell the imposing former Vice President that he’s not only about to go on camera with his fly open, but it’s a “Grand Mal Unzipping,” the kind where your shirt tail is hanging out of the fly.
It’s a funny story, and Boggs tells it well. So, Nixon unzipped, we do our sketch, I hop a cab to the screening – just in time to hear emcee Monica Crowley tell the second funny Nixon anecdote of the evening.
It’s now thirty years post Grand Mal Unzipping. Young Monica Crowley is an intern for former President Nixon at his Saddle River, NJ home / office. Former President Ronald Reagan pays a visit. Monica gets the rare opportunity to be photographed standing in between two presidents. Just before the cameraman shoots, our impetuous young Monica seizes both the opportunity and the aging presidential buttocks, and gooses Nixon and Reagan! The result: a photo of a young, grinning Monica and two very surprised old presidents (or, as Reagan inscribed the photo: “To Monica, a rose between two thorns”).
After the screening, we had a great time hanging out with an actress friend who I’ve known twenty years – but never knew anything about her politics. Turns out she’s a big Reagan fan, and a lifelong Republican. I asked her if she talked politics at auditions or on the set. “Well, I don’t avoid it…But, if I’m in a room full of true believers, what’s the point? I was doing a voice over job last year that had to be rescheduled because I was out of town on the first date they wanted to use me. I was in Minneapolis at the Republican National Convention. The next week at the job, the director was incredulous: ‘Why were you at the Republican Convention? What were you doing there? You mean you’re supporting McCain??’ I said: ‘Okay, let’s just do the work…’”
The documentary, by the way, was very good. I particularly enjoyed the emphasis on how Reagan’s experience negotiating contracts with the studios as president of the Screen Actors Guild directly influenced his negotiating tactics years later with the Soviet Union and the Democratic congress. A couple of things Reagan learned as SAG president: “The purpose of negotiating is to get a deal” and “I’d rather get 80% of what I want then to go off a cliff with my flag flying”.
Ahem. Maybe the current SAG president could learn a thing or two from the old conservative?
And so, with our stomachs bloated with delicious hors d’oeuvres, clutching our gift bags with free Ronald Reagan coffee mugs, our big date night completed, the lovely Bride of Konig and I returned to the Palatial Konig Estates, relieved our brilliant teen-aged daughter of her duties babysitting for her younger brothers, watched the Mets drop another one to the Dodgers, and went to sleep.
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28 Comments
Newt seems awfully bright and personable. Hope he returns to office some day.
It's a good thing it was Monica Crowley between Nixon and Reagan, and not Monica Lewinsky. The result would have been very different. As for Nixon with his zipper down, did you really have to tell us about that? I was eating at the time. I may never eat again.
Uh, the lady in the photo is Jane Wyman, the first Mrs. Reagan … definitely NOT Liza Minelli, who most likely hadn't been born when the photo was taken.
Are you talking about this Ronald Reagan?
"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them."
Ronald Reagan
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same."
Ronald Reagan
"Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have."
Ronald Reagan
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Ronald Reagan
Gee how times have changed and government remains the same.
Nor is the actress Judy Garland, Liza's mom….although I never realized that the first Mrs. R and Miss Garland had similar shaped noses.
This had to be back in Reagan's dem days, as Fonda and Kely were both ardent Dems.
Duh … I meant to type definitely not "Judy Garland" who, at the time this photo was snapped absolutely was alive. S Liza still didn't come along for several years. And the gal in the photo is still Jane Wyman.
I think Newt saw the writing on the wall for the last Presidential election.
LIberals, young 'hip & cool' voters, the left, the main stream media (Wait… I already said 'the left', didn't I?) and white middle-aged folks who want to be seen as 'non racist', decided they were going to asuage their guilt for the slavery commited by people we've never met – and had no influence over.
There was no way Obama was going to lose last year. Hell – they even turned their back on Mr. Bill Clinton, who they loudly proclaimed "The First Black President" for a decade.
Newt wasn't stupid. I truly believe he has intentions on running on 2012, and based on everything I read from him, and what he says when I watch him on the news (and he is very prominent and vocal this last year) tells me he is the right man for the job.
EVERYBODY LAY OFF DAVE KONIG!!!!
Ha ha ha …been a while since i've said that….
Yah, Reagan was such a breath of fresh air…makes me mucho nastalgic for ol' Dutch, whenever i seen Big-O on the tube…every ten minutes.
Newt is Da Man! It would be nice to have a candidate who can kick a$s in a debate.
"[I]f I’m in a room full of true believers, what’s the point?"
No wiser words have ever been spoken. Leftists live in a world without time, without cause and effect, without unintended consequences, where sound collides with color and shadows explode (Apologies to National Lampoon). You just can't talk them down from that bad of a trip, especially while they're still guzzling the Kool-Aid.
Oh, Boris Karloff rocks.
I can only hope there is a Conservative in the wings, who will be what Regan was to Carter as ? is to Obama.
Good read, great picture!
"Newt Gingrich is much taller in person than he is on TV."
I noticed the same thing! I mean, I've never seen him on person, but after watching him sitting down for years and thinking he was 5'8" to 5'10", I saw him standing next to someone else and realized "holy cow, he's a big guy."
Same thing with Hannity. Gutfeld, on the other hand…
Henry Fonda in the photo is actually Boris Karloff. Yes, "Frankenstein's monster".
First a comment re one of the earlier postings, from barkernan. I couldn't agree more. The year 2008 was the "perfect storm" for the Dems and Obama. Add to it the fact that Bush (unjustly, in my view) had become so unpopular it probably is a miracle that McCain did as well as he did.
As for Newt running sometime in the future, I agree he would make a great President. The guy really is brilliant, eloquent, an outstanding debater, a consummate politician in the best sense of the word, and a great campaigner etc., etc., etc. The main difficulty he faces now and down the road involves his ability (or lack thereof) to get beyond the result meted out by the purveyors of the "politics of personal destruction." The "Dem H&H Squad (as in Hate & Hit) did a good number on him when he was in the House and getting beyond the damage won‘t be easy. A second huge problem he faces — as do all GOP candidates — is how to overcome the openly biased news media that basically has been enlisted by the Dems to head up its propaganda arm.
The task ahead will be formidable.
The MSM will be so disorganized by all the closures and shutdowns-loss of car advertising donchya-know!-their effect on the election will be significantly decreased. The fact that they have helped the Fuhrer take over cars, banks, credit cards, and probably hospitals will decrease their effect too!
Huc, you put into words what I have felt for years about libs. Just lettin' you know I may steal it.
I want that picture with Reagan and Nixon!
That sounds like a wonderful evening. That photo of Ronnie from the glory days of Hollywood outstanding.
Not Liza, – Judy. On second thought, maybe you're right – that is Wyman, isn't it?
Right – Wyman, not Garland! Boy, they have similar profiles, don't they?
Sure looks like Judy to me! Good quotes by Reagan and great pic. The 50s were an important time for American destiny. The HUAC and communist witch hunt showed how to cow dissenters by labeling them socialists, communists, un-American. As we found in the last 8 years, those techniques are still in evidence today.
Funny enough, the two most conservative presidents of the last 30 years, Reagan and young Bush, were also the most profligate public spenders and public debt expanders. Seems, rhetoric comes with a price!
And for all you knee-jerk reacting to my socialist comment above, hey, we are all socialists. If you're not a socialist, then go drive on your own roads and bridges!
Here are a few more from the late great Reagan:
'Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.'
'The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'
'The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.'
'Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'
'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.'
'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'
You said, "Gee how times have changed and government remains the same. " Sad but true, sad but true.
Not to beat a dead horse, but that definitly is the first Mrs. Reagan, Jane Wyman. You should look up some of the comedies they did together while they were under contract at Warner Bros. great stuff!
You're welcome to it, Bev. The original version is from an old National Lampoon comedy album called, Radio Dinner. It was a Twilight Zone spoof with a Rod Serling impersonator:
"You're caught in a world without time, where sound collides with color and shadows explode. This is no imaginary dream world, this is the real, every day life of a pothead."
Quoting from memory, but it's one of my favorite comedy albums of all time, and it does describe leftists perfectly.
[...] here to read the terrific post at Big Hollywood from which I shamelessly lifted this gathering of stars. [...]
I love Newt too, but I wish he'd clarify his positions vis a vis the environment….
Take another look at that actress–she's not Judy Garland. Isn't she Jane Wyman (sp), R Regan's first wife??
Yes, Wyman not Garland! The person who wrote that photo caption has been fired!
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