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A Few Funny Things About Bob Dole, Since Bob Dole Passed Away
A man permanently disabled and left for dead early in life with every right to not accomplish anything, Bob Dole met his end after a near century run.
It took social media mere moments from the announcement of Bob Dole’s death to do what social media does best: folks doing whatever they wanted to do anyway, but spinning breaking news as their latest excuse for it. In the case of high-profile political figures who pass away, the well-worn ruts of overpraising the dead or dancing on their not-yet-filled graves is to be expected. Especially with a complex and very long legacy of someone like Bob Dole.
Bob Dole was a man of many parts, as Bob Dole himself would admit. His habit of referring to himself in the third person and with full name immediately made me think not of the political, but of the comedic. How funny life is, that the much younger man who used the “Bob Dole” third person joke to impersonate him, Norm MacDonald, would precede him in death. As would his 1996 running mate Jack Kemp, placed on the ticket in no small part as the “younger” insurance policy to the then-already 73-year-old Bob Dole at the time.
