(FORTUNE Magazine) – ''Parsnips are in the forefront of the national consciousness today,'' is how Bob Dole put it in the Congressional Record. The smiling Kansan added that we need government action to coordinate all the ''programs affecting parsnips in the various federal agencies.'' Above all, Dole sensed, ''parsnips need an official national advocate -- one with direct access to the President.'' And above even that, the minority leader wished to appropriate monies for authorized activities to benefit parsnips, with one per centum of the funds set aside for Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and a few other faraway places and the balance distributed among the states in proportion to their parsnip populations, although il va sans dire that no individual state gets less than 0.5% of total outlays. We're kidding. Bob didn't actually allude to parsnips in proposing this boilerplate federal program. Guess what term he used instead. Was it (a) senior citizens, (b) children, (c) minorities, or (d) middle-income families? The correct answer, it happens, is (b). But you will note that just about any answer at all makes sense. Especially in Washington. The parsnips could make it yet.