Harry Reid Gives Credit for Obvious Ubiquitous Joke to His Wife
Harry Reid gave his wife Landra credit for his new favorite line: "Republicans are addicted to Koch." Literally everyone ever, up to and including George Washington, probably, has made that same "joke."
.In a roundtable with reporters reported by BuzzFeed's Kate Nocera, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid gave his wife Landra credit for his new favorite line: "Republicans are addicted to Koch." Literally every person ever, up to and including George Washington, probably, has made that same "joke."
Nocera quotes Reid on the joke. "My wife came up with it. Swear on my life." (We are legally obligated to explain the joke, which is a sure sign it's a winner. Koch, as in the conservative-movement-funding Koch brothers, is pronounced like "coke," the shorthand term for cocaine. Cocaine is an addictive substance. Please email any additional questions to the author, who will patiently explain further.)
Let us give Landra Reid the benefit of the doubt. That she was blogging for the conservative site Powerline in March 2011 under the pseudonym "Scott Johnson." The piece is "Addicted to Koch," and refers to "the disease of Koch addiction." She used the joke in February 2011, too, at The God Article. Last year, she was assuming the name "rob yerkes" to comment on posts at Inside Higher Ed. She posted at the blog News from Doswell, whatever that is, ranting about "Koch addicts."
In November, she appeared at a D.C. rally dressed as "a man with an uncanny resemblance to Michael Caine," who was wearing a sash reading "Republicans are addicted to Koch." The Wire found the picture at right, apparently showing Landra Reid at a protest against Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin in 2012.
That same year, Reid started to branch out a little bit, figuring the joke was too good not to make a profit from. We have to assume that the funny bumper sticker below is also Reid's handiwork. (The joke is "kicked up a notch" here; "Cain" and "Koch" working in harmony for comedic perfection.)
Our point is this. Either, (a), Landra Reid's been struggling for years to get her funny joke to catch on in the popular imagination, but her husband Harry, preoccupied with other things, hasn't seen fit to help boost the signal. Or, (b), the joke is pretty obvious.