Grover Unplugged He’s


surprising in more ways than you think.


He occasionally does stand-up comedy at the D.C. Improv. In 2009, he placed second in a stand-up comedy competition.


His wedding to Samah, who is Muslim, was of iciated by a rabbi. Grover is a Methodist.


He once had a collection of exotic toilet tissue from Eastern European nations. His wife insisted he lose it.


He still keeps a collection of (unused) air-sickness bags from international airlines.


In the 1980s, he traveled to Afghanistan to support the mujahedeen in their insurgency against Soviet occupation.


Norquist sits on the boards of the NRA and American Conservative Union.


In college he was an editor of the liberal school newspaper the Harvard Crimson.


54 NEWSMAX | FEBRUARY 2012


Despite his status as the enforcer of the GOP’s anti- tax orthodoxy, he befriended the late, great British- American iconoclast Christopher Hitchens.


Publisher Larry Flynt once asked him to write a column for Hustler magazine. Norquist passed.


He’s studying magic tricks in order to entertain children.


He does not consider broadening the tax base


a violation of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge — as long as net tax revenues do not increase.


He’s an expert juggler. His third book, Debacle, will be


published February 28. His last tome, Leave Us Alone, was highly praised in conservative circles.


R. Higgins, president and CEO of the Independent Women’s Voice group, agrees. “Isn’t that the reason the pledge came into being?” she asks. “It was the general observation people made over time: Whatever a politician promises when they’re in campaign mode tends to evaporate after they’ve been in Washington for a while. “So this was meant to be a way of


reminding them why they were sent there and what their constituents


NORQUIST/ANDREW HARNIK/THE WASHINGTON TIMES/LANDOV /MICROPHONE, PAPER, TRICK, BAG/ISTOCKPHOTO HITCHENS/AMANDA EDWARDS/GETTY IMAGES ENTERTAINMENT/GETTY IMAGES / MAIL/PETE MAROVICH/ZUMAPRESS.COM


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