THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, October 31, 1994 TAG: 9410290028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
PORTSMOUTH'S Bill Tatum sounds as though he's been hitting the cough syrup too often. Between prescriptions - he's the registered pharmacist at the Medicine Shop on West Washington Street - Bill practices writing for late-night TV talk shows.
His latest is ``Real Reasons Wilder Backs Robb:''
Mistakenly thinks Tai Collins is out of picture and accepts Robb's offer of nude massage.
President Clinton offers him West Virginia.
Brylcreme deal fell through.
Never understood the North-Contra affair; still thinks Fawn Hall is a lobby in the Elks Lodge.
President offers him ambassador to Africa job (only if he takes West Virginia).
Offered choice position in Man Will Never Fly Society.
Promised his own ``The Wilder Workout Video'' by Playboy.
Even though he once called Robb ``unfit for office,'' while in Washington he realized everyone else was too . . . so what the heck.
Well, at Least He's Playing With a Full Deck. We should have seen this coming. The most original campaign novelty of the 1994 senatorial campaign in Virginia is now available.
It's ``Oliver North's Pack of Lies.'' Yep, it's a deck of playing cards with an Ollie lie on every card. According to Clean Up Congress, the distributor, there's a certifiable, documented falsehood on every card.
Woody Holton, the son of former Republican Gov. A. Linwood Holton, heads Clean Up Congress, the Arlington-based political action committee. Holton may have seized on the idea after North said, ``This is the same Woody Holton that organized anti-American activists down in Nicaragua.''
The truth is that young Holton did go to Nicaragua in 1983, but it was for a fact-finding student visit sponsored by a Presbyterian church group. He certainly didn't organize any activists.
That's a minor whopper compared to the rest of the lies printed in the deck, which show that the colonel is a democratic liar - one who lies about people regardless of their race, creed or party affiliation.
Coincidence or not, Nancy Reagan got into the act late last week when she said North was unable to distinguish fantasy from fact and had lied about, and to, President Reagan.
Flag Contest. Would someone please tell me what happened to George Bush's kinder and gentler America?
After I proposed a flag that Southerners could fly that wouldn't offend others in the way Confederate flags do, my mail has heated up again.
Donald Davis of Chesapeake writes: ``You are as abhorrent to me in your treatment of Southerners as those in the Klan are to me by virtue of their treatment of black Americans. In other words, you are a David Duke in liberal face.''
An official entry in our flag contest comes from Kelley Aquino of Virginia Beach, who has converted the colors of the Confederate flag into a banner with a swastika on it and a motto that reads: ``If we can't offend one race, let's offend another. Could you please pass the jelly?''
Now comes Ruth Mayhew of Norfolk, who writes: ``Amidst all the controversy over flying the flag of the Confederacy, I would implore you to look closely at the flag flying over the great State of Virginia.
``The `genius' spirit presiding over our state is a half-dressed, masculine woman with three goddesses on the other side to back her up.''
Mayhew concludes: ``Is this a tribute to a state and nation founded upon the principles of respect for God, country and our fellow man? I think not! What do you think?''
I think I've got to go now, Ruth. Where did I put my hat? by CNB