Laugh Lines : Jokes

Hail to the chief: President Clinton called for income tax cuts for people who need job retraining or who will be buying new homes. “That’s our Bill,” says comic Argus Hamilton: “Always thinking of himself.”

Hamilton, on freshman GOP Sen. Fred Thompson’s speech in response to the President’s address: “He’s a former movie actor. By the time he finished talking, it felt like Nancy Reagan had never left office.”

Comedy writer Bob Mills found one part of Clinton’s tax reduction plan intriguing: “Families earning less than $60,000 would get a $500 credit for each Cabinet member who resigns under fire.”

Jay Leno, on a White House security scare: “I guess the alarm was set off by a woman who stepped over the security line. Turns out it was just an overanxious Elizabeth Dole measuring for drapes.”

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Also in the news: Hamilton, on Boris Yeltsin’s nose surgery: “Everyone over there is amazed. This is the first time in Russian history that one of their leaders has come out from under anesthesia.”

Reader Alex Pearlstein of Redondo Beach, on the study that says 50% of 12th graders have experimented with drugs: “Teachers say that’s about the same percentage of students who have experimented with homework.”

Comedy writer Alan Ray, on the same report, which indicates that teen drug use has increased: “Their self-designed anti-drug campaign isn’t really working: Just say huh ?”

Ray, on a possible Disney theme park in Latin America: “They’ll mix Magic Kingdom technology with South American culture. All the jets on the airplane ride will carry cocaine.”

Comedy writer Marc A. Holmes, on discovery of the chemical enzyme TPA, which may help people who exercise avoid heart attacks: “Scientists also think they’ve isolated the enzyme that makes rich people tie sweaters around their necks.”

Leno, on why former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders should visit O.J. in jail: “If anybody needs some creative advice on how to spend time when you are alone, it’s O.J.!”

Mills’ Orange County update: “Voters in Manhattan Beach have overwhelmingly approved former County Treasurer Robert L. Citron as roving ambassador to their sister city of Sarajevo.”

Newark police say a major enforcement problem is the Russian Mafia. Comedy writer Tony Peyser says that when they make you an offer, “you have to stand in line before you decide you can’t refuse.”

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While reader Chuck Hall of Los Angeles was putting son Chase, 6, to bed one night, the two discussed the fact that Chase’s name had appeared on the reprimand board at school with three check marks. Hall asked him what the boy could do the next day to keep his name off the board.

Without hesitation, Chase replied: “Go home.”