(GK: Garrison Keillor, SS: Sue Scott, TK: Tom Keith, TR: Tim Russell)
GK: Time once again for Famous Celebrities (THEME), brought to you by MarDel, makers of CoNex. 1999 - this is the week the Senate began the impeachment trial of President Clinton, and the spectacle of it makes famous celebrities all over the country feel a little bit uneasy, knowing that their turn could come next. If the tumbrils come for the President, then surely it won't be long before the mob goes after the rest of the aristocracy. Let's talk to some members of the Establishment and see how secure they're feeling. How about you, Mr. President?
TR (BUSH): Well, thinking about security, and I often do, even now, the burdens of power lifted from me and all of that, but I accepted them gladly, every day, it's like my mother used to say. She had a little saying about that just as she did for most things. She was quite a woman. Never forget your mother, I tell kids. Never forget her. My kids feel that way about Bar. What was your question?
GK: Do you feel secure as an ex-president or do you worry that some scandal could bring you down?
TR (BUSH): Well, it's like my mother used to say, don't burn your bridges before you get to the river. Something like that. You can't cross a river twice.
GK: Thank you, Mr. President.
TR (BUSH): And I stand by my sworn testimony, whatever it was in that case.
GK: In what case?
TR (BUSH): In any case.
GK: Good. Thank you sir. Mr. Dole, looks like you may be a celebrity again.
TR (DOLE): Bob Dole is back in the news. Just when my Viagra kicks in, Liddy decides to go out and run for President, so I guess I get to redecorate the White House and do stuff about literacy.
GK: You're not concerned about some scandal tarnishing you if you become First Lady?
TR (DOLE): I think Bob Dole will be a real ornament, and do his part, pour tea, bake cookies, whatever.
GK: Your wife is going to be gone a lot now, I imagine.
TR (DOLE): Got a freezer full of chicken dinners, got a video rental store that delivers...I'm all set.
GK: Okay. Good luck to both of you. - Bob Dylan, still out there on the road playing to big crowds-
TR (DYLAN): Life is a highway-
GK: Do you worry that suddenly you might topple from popularity-
TR (DYLAN): No, I don't - people come to hear me even though they don't understand a word I'm singing - I call that true loyalty.
GK: They don't understand what the songs mean-
TR (DYLAN): That too. And they don't know what the words are. And neither do I.
GK: You don't know the words to your songs?
TR (DYLAN): Forgot 'em years ago. They're too long. Too weird. So I just keep making up new ones.
GK: Wow. Good luck.
TR (DYLAN): The same to you.
GK: How about you, Julia Child? Do you ever worry that some other chef may come in and steal your audience?
TR (JULIA): Oh goodness no. Not in the least. Television chefs are a dime a dozen, but a tall broad who can truss a turkey when she's flying high on rum sauce - they don't make em like that anymore.
GK: Really? Rum sauce?
TR (JULIA): You've got to keep tasting it to make sure the alcohol has burned off.
GK: Okay. Ted Koppel, do you ever think about the day you won't be a famous news guy?
TR (KOPPEL): Let me take that question in three parts but first let me say that I think that fame, which is what you're talking about here, and I say this as one who has been down that road, which, let me add, is a road that a newsman, or journalist, neverr seeks for himself, but that goes without saying - or, perhaps, today it does not, given the atmosphere in which journalism operates, on the border between entertainment, which, let me point out, I have no objection to, and in fact, I am a major fan of the movies of the late Cary Grant, but now I forget what the question was.
GK: I think you answered it in there, somewhere. Mr. Rogers? You have any thoughts about change, about fading from the scene, about your career going in the tank, about becoming old and forgotten?
TR (MR. ROGERS): You want to know what I think about hitting the skids? Is that what you're asking? Is it? Well, Mr. Rogers' career is never going to go downhill, and would you like to know why? Would you? Because Mr. Rogers is beautifully positioned with the 2-10 year old market and Mr. Rogers can follow that market as it get older and in fifteen years, Mr. Rogers will have the best demographics of anybody in broadcasting. Yes, he will. And all I have to do is have some rings put in my eyebrows and use very bad language. Yes.
GK: Okay. Good luck.-That's all the time we have today (THEME) for Famous Celebrities, brought to you by MarCon, makers of DelRay.
(OUT)
(c) 1999 by Garrison Keillor