BY HOOKER OR CROOKER

Sep 21, 2009 Features / Columnists, Tony Deyal column

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There was an Embassy function in Trinidad a few years ago and when the band started playing, a top-level and most senior politician who was much the worse for Johnny Walker Black, approached one of the guests and asked, “Beautiful lady in red, will you dance with me?”

The reply was, “Certainly not! First, you are drunk. Second, the music you are hearing is the Venezuelan national anthem. And third, I am not a beautiful lady, I am the Papal Nuncio.”

This joke and other political jokes, most of whom are elected, demonstrate why many people in the media say that the only way to look at a politician is down.

In fact, newsletter editor, I.F. Stone, states convincingly, “Every government is run by liars and nothing they say should be believed”. This also applies to Senators (as happened recently) who call the US President a liar.

Speaking of senators, this is what President Theodore Roosevelt said about them, “When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer ‘Present’ or ‘Not guilty’.”

It is extremely interesting that politicians, the people who we entrust with running our country, are not trusted even by other politicians. Nikita Kruschev, the Communist hard man who put missiles into Cuba and triggered the standoff with the United States, stated flatly, “Politicians are the same the world over. They promise to build bridges even when there is no river.”

Cynics in Russia describing the political philosophy which Kruschev and others used to justify state oppression joked, “What is the difference between Capitalism and Communism? Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is just the opposite.”

Perhaps this is why we have quips like, “Artificial hearts are nothing new. Politicians have had them for years.” (Mark Mc Ginniss), “In Mexico an air-conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise and does not work very well” (Len Deighton), and as the recent budget in Trinidad and several other countries demonstrated, “Politicians in power are sneaky.

They raise the tax on alcohol and then make sure the country is in such a mess that people drink more.”

The one that sums them all up is, “Politicians and diapers have one thing in common.

They should both be changed regularly and for the same reason.” In other words, don’t Pamper them, don’t give them any Huggies or Luvs, just put them in Drypers and wish them GoodNites.

If there are politicians who believe they are held in high esteem by the countries they govern, a recent poll in China about who are the most trustworthy people in that country should force them to face reality. Ronald Reagan had said, “‘Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.”

Regardless of the resemblance that Reagan perceived between prostitution (the oldest profession) and politics, the poll of 3,376 Chinese citizens conducted by China, Insight magazine found that prostitutes rated much higher than politicians in terms of being trustworthy.

Prostitutes came third on the list behind farmers and religious workers and although politicians didn’t come last, their credibility was much lower than that of prostitutes.

In Trinidad, a term for prostitution is “making fares” as in “She makin’ fares”. The question is, “How would our Caribbean politicians fare?” They might score higher than the West Indies Cricket Board but that is about it. People in Trinidad and elsewhere who worry about certain kinds of unusual relationships between politicians and contractors, developers and foreigners, should note the twist on the old adage that politics make strange bedfellows.

According to one observer, “Politics makes strange bedfellows…rich!” A Guyanese friend noted that during their “brain drain” no politician left the country.

On the other side of the coin is why do people trust prostitutes? One of the prevailing characters in literature is the prostitute with a heart of gold or the “tart with a heart”. A recent example is the case of a Chilean prostitute who is auctioning off 27 hours of sex to raise money for disabled children. The report did not say if the 27 hours were meant to be continuous.

There is undoubtedly some kind of symbiotic connection between both groups. In March 2008, US News & World Report ran an interesting timeline starting in 1974 with Jerry Springer, then a City Councilman in Cincinnati who met a prostitute in a health club and paid her by cheque, through Barney Frank in 1990 and up to Eliot Spitzer in 2008. I did some thinking on the subject and came up with my own TOP TEN list:

Politicians are not very communicative but prostitutes are quite open.

Politicians take a recess every year but prostitutes generally remain open for business.

Politicians are very aggressive and quick to rise to their feet, prostitutes are more submissive and tend to take things lying down.

Politicians always stick to the party position, prostitutes change their positions frequently.

Politicians worry about polls, prostitutes have no problems with poles.

Politicians are always on the hustings, prostitutes are on the hustlings.

Politicians are prickly, prostitutes are pricklier.

Politicians face a lot of ups and downs in their lives, prostitutes face ups, downs, backs, fronts, and even sideways.

Politicians try to appear to be fair, prostitutes make fares.

Politicians are like contraceptives – they give you a sense of security while you’re being screwed, prostitutes are like statistics – once you get them down, you can do anything with them.

* Tony Deyal was last seen agreeing with Professor Mark D. Perry, “Politicians take people’s money with a promise to fulfill desires that supposedly can’t be attained any other way. Prostitutes do the same, though by reputation, they are more reliable in delivering. It’s not surprising for people in the same line of work to gravitate toward one another…”

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