Alex,

   To quote Ron White, "I have the right to remain silent but not the
ability."

   Such a connection has been suggested in the past. You might enjoy
reading a blog I published two years ago with a pertinent selection from
'Letters from the Earth."
http://terryballard.blogspot.com/2004/06/more-things-change.html  I
won't say much more than that because this list is overheating - not
between Left and Right, but between scholars who treat Twain as an
author who has passed on, whose writings are a reflection of 19th
Century American culture, and people like myself (and apparently
Horace), who get the sense that Mark Twain is talking to us from the
grave about the things that are going on around us, and he's not happy.

Terry