More than 30 years ago, several members of the fourth estate took Ronald Reagan to task for having told a joke about an Italian, a Pole and a duck. At that time, candidate Reagan apparently felt that the Poles, the Italians and other ethnic Americans could take a joke: Reagan won in a landslide. The joke goes like this: how do you tell the Polish guy at a cockfight? He’s the guy who brings a duck. How do you tell the Italian guy? He’s the guy who bets on the duck. How do you tell that the mafia’s running the cockfight? The duck wins.
Thursday, September 9, 2010
President Ronald Reagan's Polish Italian Mafia Duck Joke
More than 30 years ago, several members of the fourth estate took Ronald Reagan to task for having told a joke about an Italian, a Pole and a duck. At that time, candidate Reagan apparently felt that the Poles, the Italians and other ethnic Americans could take a joke: Reagan won in a landslide. The joke goes like this: how do you tell the Polish guy at a cockfight? He’s the guy who brings a duck. How do you tell the Italian guy? He’s the guy who bets on the duck. How do you tell that the mafia’s running the cockfight? The duck wins.
That joke was an accurate description of Connecticut politics in the late '70s.
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