Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 3, 1994 TAG: 9404030126
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BARRY FLYNN NEWPORT NEWS DAILY PRESS
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
Jay Leno is cracking jokes at our expense. Capitol Hill staffers are forging second careers singing songs that mock our top political candidates. And cartoons making fun of Virginia notables are finding their way onto the nation's funny pages.
Next thing you know, Rodney Dangerfield will be working us into his act - we don't get no respect.
It's just too tempting: Both major parties' front-running candidates for the U.S. Senate this year have enough scandal between them to put a comedy writer's kid through medical school.
First, there's Democratic Sen. Charles Robb's recent admission he let his guard down and let his wife down. That's "just Washington talk for, `I let my pants down,' " deadpanned Leno.
"Former President Ronald Reagan said that Oliver North is lying when he says that he briefed him on the Iran-Contra scandal," Leno told his "Tonight Show" audience. "Boy, that's a tough choice to make. What do you believe in, Ronald Reagan's memory or Oliver North's word?"
The Capitol Steps, a Washington comedy group, has built a skit around North with a song called "Ollie Would," sung to the tune of "Hooray for Hollywood." "Virginia knows how to deal with hardened criminals," the group says. "Send 'em to the Senate." North's conviction on charges stemming from Iran-Contra were overturned because he had received immunity for congressional testimony.
The Doonesbury comic strip, which appears in about 1,600 newspapers worldwide, turned its attention to North in February and is back with more all next week.
In one panel, Duke, Doonesbury's hard-drinking, psychopathic personification of cynicism, tells North, "You know, Colonel, if you hadn't been in the wrong place at the right time, you'd be just another obscure ex-officer living off your pension."
Former Gov. Douglas Wilder is about the only guy who isn't joking. "It's troubling to see the state being laughed at," Wilder said recently. "We don't deserve that."
by CNB