Freshman Tales Rep. Bono Relates Ex-Wife Cher’s Thoughts On Mount Rushmore
This footnote to the Republican revolution: Cher thought the faces on Mount Rushmore were carved naturally.
Yes, the Honorable U.S. Rep. Sonny Bono (R-Calif.) confirms this fact about his famous ex-wife in one of the more cerebral intellectual journals.
It’s the January-February American Enterprise, a publication of the conservative American Enterprise think tank, which offers “Fire Breathers,” a rather engaging interview with six of the more notable, true-believer freshman Republicans in Congress.
They are Reps. Helen Chenoweth of Idaho, J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, Steve Largent of Oklahoma, David McIntosh of Indiana, Steve Stockman of Texas, and Bono, described drolly as “once the croaking foil” to Cher.
For sure, they all have their moments in this group interview.
Chenoweth, an ardent proponent of the emerging Western values of state’s rights and anti-federalism, discerns a tension between “the cowboys and the city slickers.” Hayworth, a loud and garrulous former sports reporter, bad-mouths a House office building as a prime example of wayward, inefficient liberalism, a mix of grandeur and dead-end hallways.
Largent, a former pro football star, thanks heaven he’s not a lawyer, the prime profession of congressmen, while University of Chicago Law School graduate McIntosh says he is more convinced, now that he’s in Congress, of the need of term limits.
Stockman, who has had a rocky time and is not a favorite of his own hierarchy, bemoans the workload, pointing to his 12-hour days and eating beef jerky at his desk.
And then there’s Bono.
For sure, it’s interesting to learn that the Palm Springs resident relies heavily on the counsel of Old Guard stalwart Rep. Henry Hyde of Illinois. And to hear his praise of a philosophical adversary, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), for being a tough, smart fellow who doesn’t take things personally and “handles beautifully” any “connotations about his sexuality” (Frank is gay).
But, somehow, the topic of Cher and Mount Rushmore - yes, he says, the story is true:
“When I met Cher, she was 16, and Cher can be this pillar of wisdom or this incredibly naive person. Cher has decided that Mount Rushmore was a natural phenomenon. And I said if that is true, then I’m going to become a monk.”
Back then, it would have been just as outrageous if Bono had said he’d become a congressman.
Quickly
As the first Baby Boomers turn 50, the January Vanity Fair has Christopher Hitchens’ excoriation of them as soulless, selfish and given to incessant generational selfcongratulation and, elsewhere, does a nice job explaining the daily competition between the two great auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s, as they immerse themselves in a business “all about how the rich transfer their things.”
In the Jan. 1 left-leaning Nation, Harvard theologian Harvey Cox mulls a need for self-perceived progressives to rethink the public role of religion today and not automatically roll their eyes when religious conservatives note the absence of same.
“The fact is, we do live in a culture that seems to have lost any sense of its own validity,” he writes.
The January-February This Old House offers a decent primer on the vagaries of property tax assessments and how to guard against getting the shaft, for example making sure to double-check if room measurements are accurate and the room count right if you’ve cut the actual living space.
Golfers, run out and get December Golf Digest for David Owen’s nifty look at the sport’s “troubled, unappreciated genius.” Moe Norman, 66, is virtually unknown to golf fans but apparently a mythic figure to famous professionals for knowing “how to hit the ball exactly, positively where he wants it to go,” though using very unconventional swing theories (and wearing long-sleeved shirts, buttoned to the chin, even on the hottest summer day).