Usually, Baristanet doesn’t get into fact-checking national politicians, but during a long latke-making session yesterday afternoon, I happened to hear House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi quoting our hometown hero Yogi Berra on the subject of the GOP and the payroll tax cut.

The Republicans say “This is too short.” It reminds me of a Yogi Berra story. He said, “I don’t like the food at the restaurant. Besides, the servings are too small.” Well that’s just what they’re saying here. They’ve never wanted a tax cut. And now they’re saying, the tax cut for middle income people is too small.

Something struck me as awry about the reference, and sure enough when I checked with Dave Kaplan, director of the Yogi Berra Museum, he confirmed my suspicions: “Ah, Yogi never really said that. His famous restaurant quote was, ‘Nobody goes there anymore, it’s too crowded.’”

A few hours later, Kaplan came back with a possible Yogi reference that Pelosi might have been reaching for.

On second thought I think she might have confused Yogi’s line when asked if he wanted his pizza cut into four or eight slices. “Four,” he said. “I don’t think I can eat eight.”

Actually, though, Pelosi was referring to an old borscht-belt joke, popularized in the opening of “Annie Hall.”

There’s an old joke. Two elderly women are at a Catskill mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, “Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.” The other one says, “Yeah, I know; and such small portions.” Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness, and misery, and suffering, and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.

Clearly, somebody needs to put The Yogi Book under Pelosi’s Christmas tree this Sunday.