Battle Of The Foot-In-Mouths

By Ellin Martens

The State Department raged last week that Pat Robertson had suggested nuking its HQ. Did he, or didn't he? It's a close call as to who has said the darndest things lately--the Rev. or preacher's daughter Jessica Simpson, star of this season's required reality viewing, MTV's Newlyweds.

JESSICA SIMPSON

ON BUFFALO WINGS: "I don't eat buffalo ... It's not? Then why are they called buffalo wings?"

ON OTHER FOOD: "Is this chicken, what I have, or is this fish? I know it's tuna, but it says 'Chicken by [sic] the Sea.'"

ON WHAT COMES AFTER DEATH: "Rigor who?"

THE REV. PAT ROBERTSON

ON LIBERIA'S CHARLES TAYLOR (WHO LATER FLED THE COUNTRY WITH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS): "So we're undermining a Christian, Baptist President to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country?"

ON HIS "PRAYER OFFENSIVE" TO GET RID OF LIBERAL SUPREMES: "One justice is 83 years old, another has cancer and another has a heart condition. Is it not possible for God to put it in the minds of these three judges that the time has come to retire?"

AND ABOUT THAT STATE DEPARTMENT: "When you get through [a recent book on U.S. diplomacy], you say, 'If I could just get a nuclear device inside Foggy Bottom, I think that's the answer...'"