The Broccoli Thing
“It’s broccoli, dear.”
“I say it’s spinach, and I say the hell with it.”
President Bush has turned E.B. White’s famous New Yorker cartoon caption inside out. His newly framed if obviously long contemplated Bush Doctrine is: “If it’s broccoli, then the hell with it.” All his life, the President revealed in a burst of candor that sent much of the vegetable world reeling, he has been forced to chew and swallow something he detests. Now, though, “I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli!” That may not be quite as bold an assertion as Richard Nixon’s “I am not a crook,” but, hey, as Bush would say, it’s not bad for a guy who was winging it without a speech writer.
Should the gustatory habits of someone whose well-advertised dietary preferences include--gasp!--candy bars crumbled over cereal and pork rinds smothered in hot sauce be taken seriously? Better to ask, can the nation dare to ignore anyone who eats like that and whose finger is on the nuclear trigger? For keep in mind that this slam on broccoli isn’t the opinion of just some bozo off the street. No, this is the President speaking, and what he likes to eat gets all mixed up with the leadership thing and the food growing thing and the jobs thing. You betcha you’d better take it seriously.
That’s why California broccoli growers have made haste to ship 10 tons of their product off to Washington, a few heads aimed at the White House kitchen, most at a food bank for the poor. Wisely, graciously, they are turning the other cheek--some would say with a vengeance--by responding to Bush’s bad-mouthing with a generous donation to the needy. Good for them.
We happen to like broccoli, within civilized limits, of course. Aside from its intrinsic merits, it’s now known to be one of those high-fiber veggies that are especially Good For You. As it happens, broccoli sales have been climbing in recent years. Now, if they could only find some way to give the stuff the tanginess of pork rinds, sales would probably zoom right off the charts.
