American Rhapsody by Joe Eszterhas

helmet in the tank . . . Hugh Grant and Divine Brown . . . Carter admitting “lust in his heart” . . . Nancy whispering into Reagan’s ear . . . George Bush and Jennifer Fitzgerald . . . Ford falling down all the time . . . Bob Packwood singing Sinatra songs . . . George Bush commenting on his television debate with Geraldine Ferraro, saying, “We tried to kick a little ass last night” . . . Carl Bernstein and Elizabeth Taylor . . . Bob Dylan and Elizabeth Taylor . . .
    Hustler
’s selection of Jerry Falwell as “Asshole of the Month” . . . J. Edgar Hoover and sixteen-year-old boys . . . LBJ picking women out of crowds, his aides pimping for him . . . Jimmy Carter’s poems . . . LBJ stealing furniture from the White House and flying it to his ranch . . . Eddie Murphy and the transvestite . . . George Bush saying, “Read my lips—no new taxes” . . . Dick Morris and Sherry Rowlands . . . JFK using Judith Exner as his bagman to the mob . . . LBJ staggering drunk and cussing up a storm in the White House . . . Jack Kemp’s time-shared Lake Tahoe apartment . . . Joan Kennedy’s life . . . Eugene McCarthy’s poems . . . Geraldo and Marion Javits . . . Ike and Kay Summersby . . . Vince Foster’s suicide note . . . JFK and Marilyn in that loft above the attorney general’s office . . . LBJ lifting his dogs up by the ears . . . George Bush examining a price scanner at a grocery store . . .
    Barney Frank and Steve Gobie . . . Ruth Carter Stapleton and Larry Flynt . . . Paula Jones’s nose . . . Bobby and Marilyn . . . Dustin Hoffman saying about Carl Bernstein, “I understand why Carl did so well on Watergate. Carl is essentially a fuckup and he has to fail, and Nixon is a fuckup and he has to fail, so Carl could always understand Nixon” . . . the videotape of Peter Jennings blowing his nose onto the ground . . . Jimmy Carter picking his nose in that photograph . . . Iowa senator Tom Harkin blowing his nose without a handkerchief on C-SPAN . . . Pat Buchanan saying, “Congress is Israeli-occupied territory” . . . Texas gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams comparing bad weather and rape: “If it’s inevitable, relax and enjoy it” . . . Bob Kerrey telling Bill Clinton that joke on C-SPAN: “Jerry Brown walks into a bar and sees two hot women. A guy in the bar says to him, ‘Don’t waste your time, Governor; they’re dykes.’ Brown says, ‘How do you know?’ The guy says, ‘They like going down on each other.’ Brown says, ‘I like that, too. Does that make me a dyke?’ ” . . .
    LBJ ordering Marine Corps helicopters to herd the peacocks on his ranch . . . JFK doing three hookers at a time in his hotel suites . . . LBJ saying, “I don’t trust a man until I have his pecker in my pocket” . . . Spiro Agnew saying, “If you’ve seen one city slum, you’ve seen them all” . . . Ronald Reagan saying, “If you’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seen them all” . . . the picture of Gary Hart and Donna Rice . . . Barry Goldwater saying, “This country would be better off if we could saw off the Eastern Seaboard and let it float out to sea” . . . Dole falling off the stage . . . Ford drunk on
Air Force One
on the way back from Russia . . . Ford saying, “There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe,” while Russian forces were stationed there . . .
    Wayne Hayes and Elizabeth