Bad Jokes Are in the Eye of the Biased Beholder

A couple of weeks ago, I made a couple of lame jokes about Dan Quayle, who--for those who have forgotten, including possibly Quayle--was once the vice president of the United States. I didn’t think twice about it. The vice presidency has always been good for a couple of laughs.

Many readers, nevertheless, quickly accused me of being “a typical liberal” who lives to take cheap shots at conservatives, even though the jokes I made that day about Quayle were on the very same page with jokes I made about Al Gore.

Oh, well. That’s the way it goes.

It reminded me of another day, when I took a position that was not terribly flattering to President Clinton. I immediately was dismissed by a number of people as a clearly biased Republican and “a typical right-wing nut.”

That was one of my favorite days on this job so far.

I enjoy equal-opportunity abuse.

People love to label you. If you say you don’t eat apples, you must be one of those orange-loving radicals. If you say you don’t eat oranges, you’re obviously pro-apple.

It always makes me laugh. And it makes me anticipate what kind of labels will be applied next, particularly since today is the first time I have had a chance to get around to another interesting topic:

Elizabeth Dole.

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I knew on the day Dole’s name was first mentioned as a 2000 presidential possibility that I was looking forward to making a couple of harmless jokes about it.

Yet I hesitated, because no matter how many thousands of jokes I do about men, I always get hate mail when I try to do a joke about a woman.

I remember back before the 1994 Winter Olympics, when the figure skaters Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan turned into the two most famous women on American television since Lucy and Ethel. Harding and her henchmen had hatched a crackpot scheme to keep Kerrigan out of the Olympics, so that Harding could win.

The first time I made fun of Tonya and Nancy, however, I heard from a variety of women, all of whom accused me of being a typical male, some of whom wondered how a woman-hating pig like me could remain employed, and one of whom accused me of being the kind of man “who obviously loves a good cat fight.”

Well, I thought to myself, there goes 40 years of ardent feminism down the drain.

I must have made 20,000 similar jokes about men during that time, but suddenly there I was, a miserable misogynist, exposed at last.

I’d even had the audacity to make remarks about Harding’s and Kerrigan’s costumes and cosmetics, which had “absolutely nothing to do with the kind of athletes they are.” And I had joked about the athletes meeting afterward in the “Kiss and Cry Area,” a smarmy phrase only a male piece of trash like me would use.

To some of these women, I attempted to explain that: (a) Figure skating is a sport in which costumes and cosmetics do matter; (b) The Kiss and Cry Area is the official name of the area, used by the skaters themselves.

It didn’t help. I was the enemy.

The Dan Quayle thing reminded me of that. How dare you do jokes about Dan Quayle? You lousy liberal, you.

I knew of no statute of limitations on Quayle jokes, but I also found myself being criticized by more than one reader for bringing up an old, outdated subject. This struck me as odd. People often bring up old, outdated subjects, including the Titanic.

The subject wasn’t even old, because that very week, Quayle launched his candidacy to be the 2000 Republican presidential nominee.

Which brings me to Elizabeth Dole, a woman who would probably make a fine president and who would probably never be impeached for lying about having sex with a woman.

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All I actually want to ask is this:

If Dole is elected, what do we call her? Madam President? Every time I try to call a woman “madam,” she gets angry and tells me she doesn’t work in a brothel.

If Dole is elected, what do we call her husband? The First Gentleman? What if Bob threatens to punch out the first guy who calls him that?

If Dole is elected, can she do anything to update that “all men are created equal” nonsense?

If Dole is elected, would she promise to stop saying “my fellow Americans?”

See? Nice, harmless jokes.

In truth, I’d love to see Elizabeth Dole run for president. I’d even like to see her pick Quayle for a running mate.

Just as long as it’s Marilyn Quayle.

Mike Downey’s column appears Sundays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Write to him at Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles 90053. E-mail: mike.downey@latimes.com