Thursday, July 21, 2005

the joke still fits

Condoleezza Rice is coming to visit today, and I'm reminded of this old joke:

On one of his trips to China, Henry Kissinger was presented with silk fabric by one of the Chinese diplomats. Kissinger went to several tailors who all told him that there wasn't enough fabric in order to make a suit for him. Finally, he went to a tailor in the strictly-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem. There the tailor took Kissinger's measurements and assured him that not only would he be able to make a suit for him, there would even be enough fabric to make an extra pair of pants. Kissinger asked the tailor how this could be, when afterall, several other tailors had told him that there wasn't even enough fabric for a suit. The tailor replied, "That's because by them you're a very big man. By us, you're not so big."