🚀 go-pugleaf

FONTS OF WISDOM
 
by Barry Tarshis 
 
copied w/o permission from the NY Times, Monday 8/31/92, p.A15 
 
Imagine that a network morning show has assembled six political 
heavyweights for a call-in show.  A teacher phones to report that during 
a recent class tour of the White House, a student wanted a drink of 
water, only to discover that the fountain was out of order.  The teacher 
asks the panel what message a broken fountain at the White House sends 
to the young people of America.  Let's listen to the answers. 
 
Ross Perot: The question here is simple: how do we fix it.  I say, let's 
bring together the finest plumbing talent in America -- from outside the 
system.  Let them look at the fountain.  Turn it on.  Turn it off. 
Measure the flow in it.  That sort of thing.  And you can be sure, the 
next time you take a White House tour, you're going to drink from a 
world-class fountain. 
 
Jesse Jackson: Let us not talk about this broken water fountain.  Let us 
talk about the thousands of broken water fountains across America.  For 
they, too, are broken, like the broken dreams of America's forgotten 
children.  And whether you are black, white, brown or yellow, you cannot 
use them.  Why?  Because the Republican Party is more interested in 
_Perrier_ water and _Pellegrino_ water than it is in _public_ water. 
 
Al Gore: I love my country.  And I love water.  And I love the children 
who drink from the water fountains in the country I love, and that my 
father loves.  And I believe in my heart that the time has come, now 
more than ever, for all of us to be inspired by the young people of 
America whose dreams for the future depend on our ability as a nation to 
provide them with the water that is the essence of their survival. 
 
Dan Quayle: I am very, very sympathetic to the disappointment young 
people in America feel when they go to a water fountain in the single 
most important building in America and cannot drink from it.  Because I, 
too, would be very, very disappointed if I were to go to get a drink 
from a water fountain and discover that, because of the Democrats, the 
water does not come up.  Water is a terrible thing to waste, when there 
is thirst but no water, that is a terrible thing. 
 
Bill Clinton: I grew up in a home where public water fountains were very 
important to me and to my family.  And I have put forward a plan similar 
to the plan I introduced to Arkansas.  This plan is good for America. It 
takes the $4.25 million savings we realize when we eliminate the 10 
percent reduction on the capital gains that exceed $30,000 in any given 
one-year period for Americans under the age of 31 who graduated before 
1984, and it allocates 18.5 percent of that sum to paying for 80 percent 
of the new fountain construction. 
 
George Bush: O.K.  Sure.  Fine.  There's something wrong with a water 
fountain in the White House?  Not denying it.  Have to be a fool to deny 
it.  But make no mistake about it.  There is a lot that is _right_ with 
it, too.  And that's one thing I want to focus on, you see, not what's 
bad about the water fountains in America by what's _good_ about them. 
And with the help of the American people and a Republican Congress I can 
work with, I can make the water flow again in the water fountains of 
America.