I am watching the West Wing on Bravo and Bartlet was giving a speech and was talking about something his civil procedure told him. To argue the law when the law was on his side and to argue the facts when the facts were on his side and if the neither facts nor the law were on his side to bang his fist on the defense table. Why would economist take a civil procedure class? It soesn’t wound like an American studies class either (Bartlet’s major). This was from the first season, so was Bartlet supposed to have been a lawyer and then they changed him to an economist?
No, as far as I know he’s been an economist. A very smart economist (I think he won a Nobel Prize) so I think he’s no slouch in other areas.
There are people who are both lawyers and economists.
–Cliffy
Yes. But those who are both lawyers and rodeo clowns are more popular.
Yes. But those who are both lawyers and rodeo clowns are more popular.
That line is an ancient joke that anyone in politics would have heard five hundred times by his age.
For that matter, anyone who’s been watching television by that age would have heard five hundred times as well.
I don’t know about five hundred times… I’ve heard it (then again, I’m not as old as the WW prez would be,) and it doesn’t sound like it’s being told right… though that could be the fault of the OP and not the show.
The key… well, one of the keys, anyway, is making a pun in using similar wording in all three cases, as opposed to “argue the law”, “argue the facts”, “bang his fist.” The version I remember hearing and liking actually had a third element in the setup… law, facts, and circumstances IIRC. Along the lines of “…and if the circumstances are on your side, hammer away on the circumstances.”
The punch line? “Hammer away on the table.” 
It’s not a pun, and never was a pun. It’s a “rule of three” joke. The rule of three is that you have two ordinary and related items followed by a third item that twists the ordinary into humor. Watch any sitcom or stand-up routine and you’ll hear these constructions constantly.
And I said “by his age,” meaning Bartlet’s age. If you haven’t heard it five hundred times, that just means you are very, very young.
::blinks in surprise::
I’m not sure I’d agree that it ‘never was a pun,’ though I wasn’t arguing that it was a pun entirely. Making the pun tightens the relation between the setup items and the punch line item, making the joke much funnier, in my opinion. If you want to argue that adding a third setup item ruins the ‘rule of three’ and weakens the joke, I can see that, though personally I’ve never seen anything that special about groups of three and would judge such things on a case-by-case basis on how they affect the pacing of the joke.
I’m 28 now, and I remember telling that joke to my mother not that long ago, she laughed and had never heard it before. (At least, I’m pretty sure she hadn’t.)
My main point, though, is that you can have a pun and a ‘twisting the ordinary into humor’ joke supporting each other, it doesn’t have to be an either or situation. Here I’d say the pun is mostly in the supporting role… for one thing, it acts to conceal the punch line (assuming the listener isn’t already expecting it) until that last word ‘table.’
Personally, I always loved that joke for what it says about argument and persuasion… if you have one asset and a few liabilities, make as much noise about your asset as you can. If you have no assets and many liabilities, make so much noise that no-one can hear what anyone is saying. 