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Sep. 28--Like Daniel in the lions' den, Garrison Keillor, folksy humorist and frequent Bush-basher, came to the president's home church in Dallas on Wednesday -- and survived by playfully rubbing the belly of the beast.
"I made a promise to not talk about politics, and I've kept that promise, and so I'm pretty pleased with myself," he told an overflow crowd of 900 people at the end of an appearance at Highland Park United Methodist Church. "I've been a perfectly polite guest."
Mr. Keillor, best known as the host of National Public Radio's Prairie Home Companion, was invited as part of the church's Cornerstone Speakers Initiative.
The purpose of the visit was originally advertised as a discussion of Mr. Keillor's recent book Homegrown Democrat, but the author never mentioned the name of the book in the course of his hourlong talk -- which probably preserved the light-hearted atmosphere.
On two pages in the book's preface, Mr. Keillor variously describes George W. Bush -- a member of Highland Park United Methodist since his family came to Dallas in the 1980s -- as "incompetent," "inarticulate," "dishonest," "petulant," "rigid," "incurious" and "a man who is intellectually and temperamentally unequipped to rise to the challenges of his office."
Among its most quoted passages, the book refers to the modern GOP as the party of "hairy-backed swamp developers ... fundamentalist bullies ... misanthropic frat boys ... tax cheats ... cat stranglers ... nihilists in golf pants ... backed-up Baptists ... bozos on horseback ... brownshirts in pinstripes ... [and] aggressive dorks."
Mr. Keillor later issued a sort-of apology.
"I look at those words now, and 'cat stranglers' seems excessive to me," he wrote in a weekly column this year.
On Wednesday, however, he delighted the crowd -- which undoubtedly contained at least a few Republicans, developers and people who had at one time or another worn golf pants.
Bush votes
The topics included his familiar tales of Upper Midwestern modesty -- "You don't strive to be No. 1, honorable mention is good enough. ... If someone had given us a gold trophy, we would have had it bronzed" -- and harsh winters -- "We live in a climate where every year nature makes an effort to kill you."
The closest he came to criticism of the Bush administration was a riff on airport security in which he envisions a farmer's wife subjected to the indignity of a wand search.
"There is very little correlation between terrorists and women named Gladys," he told the crowd.
At the end of the hour, he responded to an audience member's request by reciting the names of all 87 Minnesota counties from memory (in alphabetical order) -- and received a standing ovation.
The decision to stay clear of political topics was not accidental.
Asked before the appearance if he intended to discuss politics for a crowd that may not share what a critic once called his "old-time Minnesota liberalism," Mr. Keillor responded: "If they want me to tell jokes for an hour, I can stand up and tell jokes. I just hope to get out of here alive."
He may have been right to avoid criticizing Mr. Bush in a neighborhood where the president remains popular.
Bill Holland, 81, a church member, said before the speech that he had never read Homegrown Democrat, but that he was a fan of Mr. Keillor's radio show, which he praised as "so homespun, so common sense. I like the way he depicts small-town life as it used to be."
But when shown passages of Mr. Keillor's book, Mr. Holland, a Bush supporter, appeared angered.
"I'm frankly surprised," he said. "If the things in this book were more widely exposed, half of these people wouldn't be here. They'd get up and leave."
In the brief interview before his talk, Mr. Keillor acknowledged that he was risking his broad-based popularity with such a partisan book. But, he said, he feels "a moral obligation" to speak his mind.
"I would hate to think that one day my grandson asked what I did when all this was going on, and I said, 'Nothing.' "
E-mail dflick@dallasnews.com
WRITTEN WORDS
Excerpts from Garrison Keillor's Homegrown Democrat:
On George W. Bush "He's a rigid and incurious man overwhelmed by events in a world in which he is isolated and can't look around and see. He is a turtle on a fence post."
On the proposed Bush presidential library "Whoever designs his library, don't make the parking lot too big."
On a certain state south of Minnesota "That's why it's unpleasant to set foot in Texas. They execute human beings there with gay abandon. They railroad them through with a dime-store defense and the governor glances at the appeal and denies it and the defendant is tied to a gurney and put down like a dog."
On the GOP and big government "Republicans believe in deregulation, but it takes more and more of them to not regulate us."
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dallas Morning News
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