Then Saturday Night Live spawns... well, everything right down to American Pie 9, where all humor has to be irrelevant, which can get a little tiring.

The purpose of the Senate is to keep 100 middle aged knuckleheads out of the private sector where they can do real harm.

It's better to make fun of yourself because you've always got someone around to make fun of, and they can't sue you.

Politics should be limited in scope to ware, protection of property, and the occasional precautionary beheading of a member of the ruling class.

Farm policy, although it's complex, can be explained. What it can't be is believed. No cheating spouse, no teen with a wrecked family car, no mayor of Washington, D.C., videotaped in flagrante delicto has ever come up with anything as farfetched as U.S. farm policy.

Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit. A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty - their power and privilege - to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever. This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians.

It was to be a short visit for the G-shevs. More than four days in the U.S. and Raisa's VISA card bill would shatter the fragile Soviet economy.