Do you remember the famous food fight in Animal House? John Belushi, playing the paunchy pride of frat row, curtails civil liberties by yelling, “Food fight!” in a crowded cafeteria. Instantaneously, the placid, Ike-like campus erupts in a frenzy of crisscrossing cream pies, smashed crockery, and various forms of (mostly unmentionable) culinary improvisation. It’s a great scene. Unforgettable. What’s not generally known, however, is that the scene was not inspired by tales of collegiate excess. (The most widespread rumor is that author Chris Miller drew on his own experiences at Dartmouth College.) No, indeed. According to official documents that have come into our possession (we’ve been waiting a year and a half to use that phrase) here’s the way it happened.
It seems that one spring afternoon the President and his top advisors were sitting around the Rose Garden sipping tall cool ones. Talk turned from tennis and girls, as it sometimes must, to the economy and the fall campaign. The mood of the congenial group, which had been comfortable, even expansive, began to sour. “This President,” this great President, all hands agreed, deserved better. His half-witted predecessor, by now almost a beloved figure among the electorate, had stuck “this President” with a stack of unpaid bills. Not only that, but the old guy had the gall to run around to fancy clubs at ten grand a speech and talk about how he had kept inflation down—this same fellow who had opened the national cash register and bellowed to the beer-chugging civil service, “Come and get it, gang!” Sure, he left ’em laughing when he pulled out of town—anyone could, if he didn’t give a damn about the problems he was leaving behind. The country was fortunate indeed to have a leader such as “this President,” a man who could be relied upon to put the welfare of his country ahead of his own political career.
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