ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, August 12, 1996 TAG: 9608130043
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: BEN BEAGLE
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
I just wish Family Circle magazine would stick to what it knows best and leave politics alone.
But, no. The magazine is now sponsoring another cookie-recipe contest - this one between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Elizabeth Dole.
Listen: In the first place, these people don't belong in a contest like that. How about arm wrestling? Bayonet practice, maybe?
Every American, including the editors of Family Circle, knows, or should know, that neither Hillary nor Elizabeth does a whole lot of housework or spends much time in the kitchen.
Let's just say they wouldn't know a dust bunny if they saw one, and I doubt they ever made a meatloaf. Not to mention scrubbing your average no-wax floor.
Family Circle ought to continue to be the fountain of wisdom for people who are interested in peach pie recipes and hints on how to keep your shrubs looking better than the neighbor's.
It ought to forget politics and concentrate on hair-style hints or how to make sure your laundry soap isn't giving your husband asthma. Or what to do when your skin gets so dry your dog won't have anything to do with you.
Now Family Circle has, in my opinion, disrupted the Order of Things, and the result won't be pretty to watch.
The dirty tricks people are at work already.
One slow day on the city desk, The Washington Post is going to get a call, ideally from a person with a raspy voice, who says Hillary sent somebody from the White House Travel Office out to buy her chocolate-chip recipe at a fashionable Washington bakery.
The president, in one of his many radio addresses that change radio waves into sincerity, says Hillary got her cookie recipe from her grandmother.
The Democrats have dirty tricks people, too, and another raspy voice calls The Post to say that Elizabeth got her pecan-roll cookie recipe from a chef at the Senate restaurant. This is seen widely by Democrats as violation of Senate ethics.
I hope Family Circle has seen the damage it has done to the American political process. Nobody ever asked Eleanor Roosevelt or Dolley Madison to submit cookie recipes.
It's clear that the magazine has diverted attention from the real issues that confront the American voter today.
Which probably aren't as interesting as a really good recipe for chocolate chips or pecan roll cookies.
I'll take Oreos myself.
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