Posted on 06/27/2004 5:13:24 PM PDT by Pokey78
Q-Now that the country is awash in Reagan nostalgia, some observers are predicting that you will enter politics. Would you like to be president of the United States?
I would be unelectable. I'm an atheist. As we all know, that is something people won't accept.
What would you do if Senator Kerry asked you to be his vice president?
I would question his sanity.
Do you ever go to church?
No. I visit my wife's sangha.
So you sometimes practice Buddhism?
I don't claim anything. But my sympathies would be in that direction. I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion.
Your father has been eulogized as a model of genuineness. But did you see any schism between his public and private selves?
In private, you got what you got in public. He treated everyone the same. He was just a very warm man, and he worked hard to impress upon his children the value of kindness. He was biologically incapable of gossip. There was no smallness in him.
Do you think you were a thorn in his side during his presidency?
No.
But you and Patti were constantly getting into trouble. Didn't she later pose nude for Playboy?
I never really talked to Patti about it. She said that she had done it, and what do you say to your sister who poses in the nude? It's not like you are really itching to see photographs of your sister naked. I mean, it's just something that is not too exciting.
How did your father react when you joined the Joffrey Ballet?
That was fine with him. He wanted us to be happy, and if that meant leaving Yale University as a freshman and studying ballet, his first move was to call Gene Kelly and find out where the best place to study would be.
Do you and your wife, Doria, have children?
No. We have three cats. It's like having children, but there is no tuition involved.
Aren't you working in television these days?
I am a correspondent for MSNBC. They hired me primarily to do election coverage for them. We're not rich. Doria's a clinical psychologist. I mow my own lawn.
Doesn't your mom help you out financially?
Of course not. My father felt that children should make their own way.
How do you account for all the glowing obituaries of him?
I think it was a relief for Americans to look at pictures of something besides men on leashes. If you are going to call yourself a Christian -- and I don't -- then you have to ask yourself a fundamental question, and that is: Whom would Jesus torture? Whom would Jesus drag around on a dog's leash? How can Christians tolerate it?
It is unconscionable. It has put our young men and women who are over there, fighting a war that they should not have been asked to fight -- it has put them in greater danger.
Did you vote for Bush in the last election?
No. I did not.
How did your mother feel about being ushered to her seat by President Bush?
Well, he did a better job than Dick Cheney did when he came to the rotunda. I felt so bad. Cheney brought my mother up to the casket, so she could pay her respects. She is in her 80's, and she has glaucoma and has trouble seeing. There were steps, and he left her there. He just stood there, letting her flounder. I don't think he's a mindful human being. That's probably the nicest way I can put it.
How serious is your mother's glaucoma?
I don't know the specifics. She can still see. You may have noticed that she was wearing large glasses at one point.
She seemed very moved by the tributes to your father.
I have to say that flying on Air Force One sort of spoils you for coach on a regular airline. They did all sorts of little things that were very nice for my mother. They put towels with my father's monogram in the bathroom.
Paper towels?
No, cloth! Burgundy terry towels.
Wow. Why can't they run the United States with that kind of efficiency?
That's a good question. One thing that Buddhism teaches you is that every moment is an opportunity to change. And we will have a moment in November to make a big change.
Ronnie is a testament to the fact that people who don't always agree can still be filled with understanding, compassion and love. Something our country seems to have forgotten.
No.
There IS a God.
Well, Skipper, there is also that minor problem that you've never run anything bigger than your mouth. There is that.
"We have three cats. It's like having children, but there is no tuition involved."
I can sympathize with this, and say LOL, but really, where is the barf alert?
No.
One has to be willing to have sex with one's wife to have children.
And why should I care?
And why should I care what he thinks?
Your statement cannot be reconciled with the fact that he hates President Bush, Jesus, and Republicans.
is in reference to the guys groin being dysfunctional because he was gored by a bull..... are liberals really so disfunctional that they do not understand the refrence is about a guy who can't get a boner? Ugh, why are these people in charge of anything?
"Do you ever go to church? "
" No. I visit my wife's sangha."
You couldn't make this stuff up.
I think aequitas was being sarcastic. At least that's how I took it.
Read this and try to repeat your reply with a straight face.
This is an example of media bias on the part of the NYT interviewer.
It's too bad for the lib interviewer that Bush's administration toppled an enemy government in less than a month. No other government in human history has ever been as efficient when performing such a task.
Wow, the only kid that ddin't turn out to be a flake was the adopted kid.
"I admire the fact that the central core of Buddhist teaching involves mindfulness and loving kindness and compassion."
Even if Ron gave up being a homo, he wouldn't make for a very good Buddist either.
I think Maureen was okay in the head department as well, wasn't she? The only ones that turned out to be toons are Nancy's kids.
LOL! This is more hilarious than when maureen dowdy said kerry reads TS Eliot's The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, which is about an aging, cowardly man who cannot decide to pursue an important goal.
Ahhh... another piece of evidence that monarchy is a rotten form of government.
The little twerp doesn't seem like he would like kids anyway--too bitter. Probably one of these types that thinks that humans are a virus on this planet.
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