Hello, Puzzlers! Puzzling with us today: New York Times best-selling author and satirical writer of The Borowitz Report, Andy Borowitz!
Join host A.J. Jacobs and his guests as they puzzle–and laugh–their way through new spins on old favorites, like anagrams and palindromes, as well as quirky originals such as “Ask Chat GPT” and audio rebuses.
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"The Puzzler with A.J. Jacobs" is distributed by iHeartPodcasts and is a co-production with Neuhaus Ideas.
Our executive producers are Neely Lohmann and Adam Neuhaus of Neuhaus Ideas, and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts.
The show is produced by Jody Avirgan and Brittani Brown of Roulette Productions.
Our Chief Puzzle Officer is Greg Pliska. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg.
Hello puzzlers, and welcome to the Puzzler Podcast, home of the Chocolate Mint on your Daily Puzzle Hotel Pillow. I am your host, A J. Jacobs, and I am here with guest puzzler author Andy Borrowitz of The Borrowitz Report and Books of Plenty. Welcome Andy, thanks for having me, aj thank you for coming. Andy. You have a great Newish book called Profiles and Ignorance, How American Politicians Got Dumb and Dumber, and it contains many wonderful anecdotes about dumbness, including you have a Lyndon B. Johnson quote on Gerald Ford which I have two comments on it or questions about it. One. So the quote is about Gerald Ford. LBJ said he's so dumb he can't fart and chew gum at the same time. Now, first of all, I always heard it as walk and chew gum. So what's going on here?
Well, you know, Lennon Johnson was a very coarse course guy. He was just really profane and and I think it was cleaned up. That was in an era where you know, now they use like swear words on CNN of all places, but in those days like they would clean up quotes for interesting the family newspaper member, like not you know, family news right to be said in a family newspaper. So I believe that quote is accurate. But what is not accurate was his assessment of Gerald Ford's intelligence because Jerald Ford was an extremely smart guy. I like that he graduated at the top of his class at Yale Law School, which kind of hard to do, right, and he was like an economics major, and like, he's a very smart guy.
So well, maybe he wasn't commenting on the smartness, just on like his you know, coordination, coordination abilities, but he.
Was also a great athlete.
Well, yeah, that is accurate. First of all, I like you are you know, you've so so far this week stuck up for Eisenhower and Gerald Ford.
I'm nostalgic for those kinds of Republicans, I really am. The Republican Party was in favor of equal rights for women before the Democrats were. They abolished slavery, as you know, that's right, some good things to go back aways, you have to go back aways. But they did some great things.
Well we can talk about that because this is a quiz we created for you that's all about insults that are sometimes they may be accurate, they may be inaccurate, but they are insults lobbed at politicians. Oh wow, or by the press or by other politicians.
Oh what a rich area.
I'm going to read you a couple and then you're going to try to suss out who was the speaker or target. Are you ready for their first one?
All right?
This was a newspaper called this politician sooty and scoundrelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse swapper, and the nightman. That's tough words. That's tough words.
So I have to guess who they're talking about.
Yeah, who were they talking about? I will give you a little more of the same quote. They kind of got personal about his appearance. They said he's the leanest, lankiest, most ungainly massive legs and arms and hatchet face ever strung on a human frame.
Well, this sounds a little bit like honest, Ave Lincoln.
It is honest, Abe Lincoln.
I do not know, by the way, that being the nutmeg dealer was an insult.
Well I looked into it.
I try that on Twitter. Yeah, say to Elon Musk, you, sir, nothing but a nutmeg dealer.
I will tell you to unpack it just a bit. Their nutmeg dealers were notoriously sleazy because they would cut their nutmeg with non nutmeg material and nutmeg at the time.
That yeah, it's like there's paprika in here.
Exactly.
They were excuse, I will not vote for you.
Sir, a nightmaan. I don't know if you know what a nightman is, but that's basically a poop holler. Like These were the men who were before flush toilets. So it, oh my gosh, this wait an insult all right, here's one is a little little more high brow. This is from one politician to another. He said that his target was the kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree and then mount the stump to make a speech for conservation.
Which that sounds more current, That sounds more like maybe twentieth century. Twentieth century here, yep, yep, you got that cut down a redwood tree and make a stump up conservation. Gosh it, Well, if.
You want the insulter, and then you can guess the insultee.
Yes, who lobbed that gem?
That was lobbed by Adelie Stevenson Madley.
For Adley was he saying that about Ike. Nope, no, no, was he saying it about Richard Nixon.
He was saying it about Richard Nixon. I'm just going to do one more because I love it. It happens to be my favorite insult. And this was a politician saying it about another politician, but it was not ad hominint. It was actually about the guy's argument. So this politician, politician A said, politicians be argument is quote as thin as the homeopathic soup that was made by boiling the shadow of a pigeon that had been starved to death.
I mean that, Oh my gosh, that's so wordy. That's what a wordy? But brilliant.
You don't think it's brilliant? Yeah, I love it.
I don't know homeopathic soup? Is this a nineteenth.
Century it is nineteenth century?
I was guessing.
I just feel like he's taking the swipe at like the goop culture and homeoposies.
That's true, but it's a little ahead of its time. So who is the insulter? You've got to lead me down the path a little bit, all right.
The insulter was one who we've mentioned before, the nutmeg dealer himself.
Oh, interesting, gosh, we didn't say that about Douglas, did he?
He did?
There you go in.
The famed debates.
It was in the debates. I actually researched for this episode. I researched the whole Oops Rick Perry thing. Oh, I watched it over and over again.
I love Oops. Yeah. Debate moments are great. The thing about Lincoln Douglas debates is they lasted like eight hours and they took like a dinner break because there was no other entertainment back then. So people, can you imagine sitting through eight hours of those two guys? It was a senatorial debate.
Well, what I also don't understand is where in the microphone? Like, how can you even hear what they're saying?
I know people are sitting at home trying to watch and they couldn't. They couldn't it.
Well, thank you, Andy, you did very well with the hints, but you still did very well.
I needed some answer.
Where can people get more of Andy Borwitz?
Well, they can read the Borrowitz support or they can go to profiles in ignorance dot com and learn more about the book, which is full of insults. Hi, some of them politicians saying things that are insulting to themselves or the intelligence of their listeners because they're said.
Dumb perfect check it out, And as always we have extra credit for the puzzlers at home who said this quote and about whom the general doesn't know any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday, which I guess makes sense. There you go, let us know what you think, and don't forget to subscribe to the Puzzler podcast and we'll meet you here tomorrow for more puzzling puzzles that we'll puzzle you puzzlingly.
Hello puzzlers. Greg Plisk here with the extra credit answer from our previous show. On that show, we played a snake spear puzzle. He's the guy who changes one letter in something to make it a new thing, and we were playing with Andy Borowitz and we gave you this extra credit clue. Remember the answer is a Shakespeare play with one letter changed. Although we had great success as the architect of the victories of King George Bush, the second of Navarre, this political adviser's work is all for naught when King Trump comes to power years later. And the answer to this one is the Shakespeare play is Love's Labor's Lost, which takes place in Navarre, and you change one letter in the first word to get Rove's Labor's Lost. Carl Rove, who was the architect of the George Bush political campaign. All his work is for naught Roves Labor's Lost. Enjoyed playing the puzzles with you, and we'll play some more soon. Thanks for playing along with the team here at The Puzzler. I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer. Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The show is produced by Jody Abergan and Brittany Brown of Roulette Productions. Our associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs is a co production with New House Ideas and is distributed by Sportiest Datcha No Sorry, I meant to rearrange the letters. Distributed by iHeart Podcasts. If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please check out the book The Puzzler by Aj Jacob. There's a history of puzzles that The New York Times called fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by yours truly, and is available wherever you get your books and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the puzzler dot com.
See you there,