"You Bet Your Life"

Starting on radio in the late forties, and moving to television in 1950, Groucho Marx starred in a quiz show entitled "You Bet Your Life."

In the fall of 1960, the series was retitled "The Groucho Show," a move meant to distance the production from the quiz show scandal that was erupting at the time.

Groucho's recitation of the rules included, "Say the secret word and you'll divide $100." When a contestant said the secret word in the course of the show, a duck holding the secret word in its beak would come down from above, accompanied by a fanfare.

Prior to the onset of the war in Iraq, there was an administration policy of connecting the war that we went into with the tragedy of 9/11 and the fight on terror. There is apparently NO connection between these events, yet I have just witnessed remarks made by our current ambassador to Iraq that connect our pursuit of the war with 9/11 and other terrorist activities.

It would be interesting if all sectors of the media adopted a policy of whenever an administration official links the prewar Iraqis with 9/11 or terror, a duck drops down to deliver a message that says something like "BULLSHIT."

Groucho, I assume, would be pleased by this.

Norman Horowitz

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