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The vice president's stiff comedy | page 1, 2, 3
Many a staffer has also fallen victim to one of Gore's favorite bits of
chicanery: the deadpan dressing-down. One morning during the 1992 campaign,
then-deputy press secretary Steve Silverman stumbled onto the plane with a
deadly hangover after a night of carousing in New Orleans' French Quarter.
Having already thrown up in the press van, he buried himself in his seat,
only to be jostled awake by Gore shortly after takeoff. Gore, stern-faced
and all business, said he was confused about the Iran-Contra chronology and
asked him to reconstruct it for him in a memorandum before their next stop. The aide wallowed in a moment of pale-faced terror before Gore walked back to his seat -- and let out a hearty laugh. Afterward, Gore proudly sported a button reading, "I was there when Silverman blew -- New Orleans '92." Like any seasoned prankster, Gore simply picks his moments. On his last day
traveling with the vice president earlier this year, John Chitwood, Gore's personal physician,
received an urgent page: medical emergency. He grabbed his
bag and darted to the vice president's suite, where he found Gore holding
what appeared to be a badly bleeding hand. He immediately put a towel to it,
only to discover that Gore had stuck his arm into a bowl of salsa. Much of Gore's humor is purely situational. Some of it just rings funnier
because he is the vice president of the United States. "He has an awareness
of that and can play off of that," noted a former aide. Often what cracks
people up is quite subtle -- a facial expression, a raised eyebrow, an
inflection, an aside. Or it will be a playful gesture, like ordering the
lights of his motorcade dimmed in honor of Elvis while driving past
Graceland. Or stopping short while walking in front of over-aggressive
Secret Service agents, causing them to barrel into him. "He is someone that can find the humor in something faster than almost
anyone else," said Marla Romash, the former Gore communications director who is now
a consultant with the campaign. Sometimes, she said, she felt as though
she had another older brother, the way he would tease her and "make me laugh to
the point of tears." Journalists covering Gore have received their own ribbings. Earlier this
month, the vice president pulled a fast one on reporters who had been badgering his press
secretary about the Palm Pilot Gore keeps clipped to his belt. When Ceci
Connolly of the Washington Post asked him about it during a briefing, Gore
obligingly revealed the contents of his programmed "to do" list. A file
titled "press manipulation strategy" included such as items as lunch with
Brill's Content concerning Connolly and asking the FBI to investigate
Connolly's pilfering of Gore campaign literature. Gore, quite pleased with
himself, giddily exchanged high-fives with two of his aides later, saying,
"We got 'em." Around the president, Gore has skillfully used humor to lighten up the mood
as well. As George Stephanopoulos recounted in his book, "All Too Human,"
the Lorena and John Wayne Bobbitt saga used to be one of Gore's favorite running gags. For weeks, he would begin Oval Office briefings with a detailed update on Bobbitt's surgical condition.
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