Posted on 05/02/2005 6:00:13 AM PDT by fight_truth_decay
Who knew? First lady Laura Bush took over the podium from her husband at Saturday night's annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner and knocked 'em dead, keeping Washington's most powerful politicos in stitches as she worked the ballroom like a seasoned stand-up comic.
CUT
Although Washington's movers and shakers laughed at Mrs. Bush's performance, some in the press woke up with a Sunday morning hangover and began to criticize her monologue as immodest at best and downright bawdy at worst.
"Laura Bush cracks risque jokes at the White House Correspondents' dinner," sniffed Agence France-Presse. CNN reporter Elaine Quijano, who attended the dinner, also apparently had her sensibilities scarred by some of the first lady's quips.
"In some respects, I think for some folks it was a little shocking because she kind of crossed the line a little bit in some people's minds," she said.
"It was very risque," the Nation's David Korn said yesterday on Fox News. "I was wondering what the social conservatives and James Dobson had to say about all these jokes that were laced with sexual innuendo. Not a very family-values-type speech. I'm not sure I want to explain a lot of those jokes to my 4-year-old."
Eyebrows were raised by the first lady's bit about the president's ranching skills, which Mrs. Bush said her husband lacked because the elite schools he attended, Andover and Yale, "don't have a real strong ranching program."
She then added: "He's learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What's worse, it was a male horse."
The crowd howled. The joke, a female Associated Press reporter said, "had women giggling in the bathroom."
(Excerpt) Read more at washtimes.com ...
You think Laura's comments equate her to being a whore?
I really dislike what Mrs. Bush said, but it's been the first criticism that I can ever remember making of her. And I love this president. This type of forum is for expressing opinion and I think that this is an important enough issue that it needs to be aired. I think she made a terrible mistake and I think people who surround the president need to understand that some of their supporters feel that. But I continue to support the president's programs and I especially want to see Social Security privatized. I'm proud of what we are doing in Iraq. I don't see where expressing displeasure in Mrs. Bush's comments are over the tope. I believe it's a legitimate concern.
The President is at least trying to address the problem. The Democrats refused to even talk about it. Whistling past the graveyard?? Yeah, I think so.
And you should be taken out to the woodshed and smacked upside the head. Too bad hubby's at work.
Jack Benny, Bob Hope, and Johnny Carson, not to mention Phyllis Diller, and Joan Rivers all used comedy at least as risque as what Laura was using last night. So did Red Skelton, if memory serves.
Come on, contrary to popular belief, the boomers did NOT invent sex or sexual humor.
One fault does not make a person evil.
But pretending their mistake was actually a virtue is specious and unworthy of serious people.
So you won't say heck but you think it's appropriate for a lady to tell jokes about bestiality.
That's an aporia.
Laura should have stuck to jokes about Ghandi pumping gas. It worked for Hillary.
I'll let your post stand for itself.
It glaringly proves that the so-called 'moral' critics of the First Lady are both foul and disgusting.
I hope no one hits abuse, and the mods don't delete your post.
You have made my point that most of the First Lady's critics lack both class AND morality.
You are well beyond the pale with that comment.
Uhmmm, your sanctimony is showing.
Yet you people wonder why your churches have emptied like sand through a sieve ??
Puritans - eternally resentful that someone, somewhere, might be having a moment of fun.
Theft has nothing to do with the amount stolen, but rather the act of stealing. Think about the old saw that no woman is almost pregnant or mildly pregnant.
The analogy is with Laura Bush's sexual and scatological humor vs. those of Whoppi Goldberg, Robin Williams, and other Hollywood "humorists". Just because Laura Bush's remarks were milder in comparison with those of the Hollywood slime, those remarks cannot be considered "clean."
You think milking a bull is akin to bestiality? How close to a bull have you ever been??????? Do you think that milking a cow is bestiality as well? Your mind is the one in the gutter. Go cast your stones elsewhere.
Yes. I think that there needs to be a whole lot more respect for differing opinions in this thread. I think good people can respectfully disagree. But I see, for the most part, it is people who did not like Mrs. Bush's comments that are being attacked by those who did.
You are over the top..calling the First Lady a whore? I am shocked at your answer..and will refrain from comment or I will be lowered to your classless type of slanderous comment.
You are over the top..calling the First Lady a whore? I am shocked at your answer..and will refrain from comment or I will be lowered to your classless type of slanderous comment.
I doubt Laura Bush has to 'put on airs' to be hip, contemporary on non-prudish. Her mother-in-law certainly doesn't.
This is not an act folks, these are real people.
So9
This is insane -- like calling Mrs. Bush a "whore".
Stop a minute and LISTEN to yourselves.
I'm saying (ad infinitum) that overreacting to this is pointless.
The First Lady IS classy and moral, and her routine WAS funny. Period.
Oh nevermind, your girdle's cut the blood to your brain...
Thank you, thank you! An excellent analysis. You are putting into words some of my disapprobations of this event.
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