Name: Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Letterman, April 8, 1982
Uploaded: 2017-08-27T23:36:18.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Letterman, April 8, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-27. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Daniel Patrick Moynihan on Letterman, April 8, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2017-08-27. Transcript available.

Thank you very much.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan is the senior United States Senator from the state of
New York.
As a Democrat, he has been in the Senate since 1977.
He has served under Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Johnson, and Ford.
He is a former Harvard professor and one of the more colorful and intelligent
men in Congress.
Would you please welcome Senator Pat Moynihan.
You certainly make a grand entrance. What a grand tune.
That's part of my youth. I'm getting kind of old and gray now, but I have my
share of honors, you know.
But to this moment, the great event in my life, I was an ensign on the United
States ship Quirinus down in the Caribbean.
And movies were hard to get, but I was in charge of getting the movie through
the mailman.
And he was striking for a second-class mailman.
And my instructions were to him that no matter what else he did, if he'd just
bring back Top Hat every time he got a batch of movies, he'd get that promotion.
On about the 30th time that it was played under the Caribbean stars, they
played it upside down and said,
"This evening's performance is dedicated to Ensign Moynihan."
I figured it out.
You fancy yourself perhaps a song and dance man?
I just love Ginger Rogers.
Yeah. Have you danced at all?
I, a year ago, childhood fantasy I wouldn't have dared entertain, I sat in
white tie and tails next to Miss Rogers at dinner.
Hmm. And that was...
She signed the menu.
Let's get to another...
I couldn't think of anything to say.
You were in awe of the woman?
I am. I'm in love with the woman.
My wife.
Your wife approves of all of this.
She understands, it's one of those things that's been there for 27 years, it's
been an understanding we have.
Good heavens.
Let me, uh, let me ask you about another thing.
I have here a copy of the Guinness Book of World Records, and I'll briefly,
quickly turn to page 212.
The longest word in the Oxford English Dictionary is, I won't even attempt it,
uh...
Flossa, Nossa, Nihilpilification.
Flossa, Nossa...
Well, you can, there are two pronunciations, the latter is preferred.
You can also say, Flossa, Nossa, Nihilpilification.
That's the one I wanted to...
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I was going for.
Now, you introduced this into the Congressional record.
You got, you used this word somewhere.
All right.
I got it also used as the, um, title of a book review I did, of a review of
John Kenneth Galbraith's, um, autobiography, Flossa, Nossa, Nihilpilification-ism,
which makes it, that is now the longest word in the English language.
It's a simple word.
It was a made-up word from the Eaton Grammar.
You know the word iffication, as in quantification, it means to add up.
Well, the Eaton Grammar of Latin has a whole series of negatives.
It's this sort of bad, awful, terrible, so forth.
Um, and what this means is the futility of making estimates.
It means, for example, that when David Stockman says there's going to be a $91.5
billion deficit, there's really going to be a $170 billion deficit.
That's Flossa, Nossi, Nihilpilificationism.
Hmm.
Um, now, did you know, I mean, is this a word you learned in grade school, or?
No.
I learned that from my son John.
To this day, I think the only thing he reads is the Guinness Book of World
Records.
No.
And for years, after dinner, we'd sit around, and he'd just be reading, and
every so often he'd come up with something.
Yeah.
And this was in the middle of one of our budget crises about four years ago,
and I said, "That's the word to describe what's going on in Washington."
That's right.
Now, you mentioned David Stockman. Here is a man you, I believe, instructed at
Harvard, correct?
He was a student in a sense. He was a babysitter in a much more important -- he
may be the head of the Office of Management and Budget and the third most
powerful man in the free world, you!
But my daughter, he's Dave the Babysitter.
He's Dave the Babysitter.
And their dear friends.
Yeah.
We used to have one of those big old houses, and up on the top floor where the
Irish maids used to be -- my wife makes the point that the Irish maid now lives
on the second floor in this house -- and we used to have students live there.
Yeah.
And they would shovel snow and look after the kids.
Now, politically, economically, you and Mr. Stockman have pretty much juxtaposed
or not eye-to-eye at any rate.
Well, he went by me.
When he arrived in Cambridge, he was way out on the left, and I sort of got him
into where he was a Democrat, but he just kept going.
Kept moving, huh?
What is the one thing you as a senator find most disturbing being a
representative of the folks, the constituency?
Most troubling right now?
Yeah.
Well, it's a funny thing, but we're on our Easter recess, and we're going
around and traveling.
Something I don't like and think is wrong, and I run into it everywhere, and I
don't know how to respond, and I'll use this occasion.
Somewhere out there, the word has got out, and there's been an effort at it, to
tell old people and people about to retire that they're not going to get their
Social Security.
That it's going to be taken away from them if they have it or they aren't going
to get it if they've been planning for it.
The fund is running dry?
Yeah.
And it's terrifying.
I mean, you know, you're a young man.
You don't think about things like that, and some of us have pensions.
Most people don't.
Particularly the very old person, 75, 80-year-old women living alone, sort of
hearing on the television, not getting it quite precise, that Social Security
might be closed down, and what will happen to them?
It's not so!
And I think it's kind of a mean politics, frankly.
If people can persuade you that Social Security is bankrupt, they can persuade
you the last half century was a mistake, that Franklin D. Roosevelt had got it
all wrong, and it's not so.
Well, if it is propaganda, who benefits from it politically? Because I've heard
it now through two administrations, both Democrat and Republican, and even
before that the fund was going to dry up soon.
The fund had - the rates of tax had to be increased, and there's a couple more
increases already enacted in the 1977 legislation, but the funds - we have a
little bit of a squeaker in the 1980s.
After that, we go on for about 30 years in which the fund is in surplus.
Come the year 2030, you begin to have some new troubles.
You might have anticipated out 75 years, and as I can tell you, you don't
really know what the birth rate in the year 2000 is going to be, so what the
workforce in the year 2055 is.
You know something, but not what.
So then people like myself who have for a very long time now seen this come out
of our paychecks, will we get it back?
Yes, you will. How old are you?
Thirty-four.
Well, in the year 2013, if you retire, you will get your Social Security. Don't
think about it.
Mark that down.
But much more important, you're covered now. Are you married?
No.
Well, if you were married, and you will marry someday, and had children, you
know, and you were run over by a bus, your wife and your children would be
instantly covered by Social Security.
You know, it's not just in the future. It's part of the insurance you have as a
family person, and my wife and...
So we shouldn't put this fear to rest, us and also older people.
Well, pay attention, but don't let people terrify you when they've got a
political agenda.
Yeah.
Let me ask about your background, because you are such an elegant person, and I
don't know another word to use, but you make a wonderful presence.
Was your background as a wealthy youngster, you referred to having maids
upstairs and here and there and so forth?
No, in that, I was a professor in a house when it was built in the 1900, had a
floor for the Irish maids, and my wife, Elizabeth Brennan, said the Irish maid
lives on the second floor.
Referring to you folks.
For her.
But, no, I was raised here in New York City in the Depression. It was, you know,
a funny thing, nobody had any money, but in another way nobody was poor.
Because nobody had any money, and we didn't feel poor, we just felt broke.
Yeah, well, sure.
That's a difference.
Yeah, yeah. You shined shoes just down the street a ways, huh?
Used to shine shoes at 42nd Street. I was raised, not raised, because in those
days, no one can remember this in Manhattan with rent control anymore.
In those days, everybody moved on the 1st of October.
Right.
Because you got one month's rent free, and, you know, obviously you didn't get
one month's rent free, but we all thought we got one month's rent free.
So you moved up and down, but I was in the west side, I used to shine shoes at
Times Square.
Now you're a United States Senator, among other things. You've been many, many
high-level things.
High-level, low-paid.
We're going to pause here. We'll be right back.
Thank you very much. We're completely out of time. Senator, thank you very much
for being here.
Thank you, Dave.
Pleasure talking with you, and nice meeting you, sir. Please come back any time.
We're going away for a couple of days.
Monday, producer of Middletown, Peter Davis, and television producer Mark Goodson
will be here.
Also a premiere of a new movie, My Dinner with Pete.
Thank you, folks. Have a good weekend. Good night.
This has been a Melnor production, uh, Melman production.