Laura leaves 'em laughing, gasping (Not a very family-values-type speech..very risque: David Korn)

WashingtonTimes ^ | May 02, 2005 | By Joseph Curl

[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."

[yellowdoghunter]

Now that is debatable.....

It is fine if people liked it or didn't, those that didn't shouldn't be attacked. I see the gang is showing up in full force. However, it is still small.

[mountainfolk]

Not every joke has a sexual double meaning. Long married couples with a sense of humor say a lot of stuff that could be taken more than one way depending on the mindset of the listener. The Dagwood and Blondie comic strip used to have a running comment, 'husbands are a sorry lot', and Laura Bush played to that theme. The joke about Desperate Housewives was not meant to be sexual. It dealt with the universal frustration of wives chafing at their stuck in a rut husbands. The male stripper joke was funny because it was so foreign to what we associate with Laura Bush or any of the ladies she mentioned. And so on and so on. I am wondering why the critiques of her performance end short of her final dialog which was so full of love for her husband, her girls, and the Bush family. I hope both the President and his wife retain their sense of humor and have many more long years of a loving and humorous marriage.

[twigs]

And why should you stand down?

I believe that freedom of expression on a public forum comes with responsibility. If my comments hurt the president, then the discussion stops. Period. But I'm disappointed to see the attacks coming from all directions.

[Protagoras]

You seem to have lost the focus of my post. You seem confused.
It would be nice if you commented on what I said.

[iconoclast]

The joke about Chippendales was hilarious (what a mental picture).

I'd like to think even Judge Ginsburg saw the humor in it since she hasn't complained yet. ;o)

[Howlin]

You know, Howlin, people do have a right on this forum to express their opinion, just like you.

Sure they do, but they don't have the right to represent themselves for speaking for ALL Christians.

typical of the usual suspects.

You have some major issues.

[ohioWfan]

Disagreement with extremists making absurd accusations is not 'bashing.'

I can verify that most of the people defending the First Lady here ARE Christians, and cannot do the same with those who are calling her vulgar names........

[Gabz]

It's truly amazing to me.

The blindness to the irony and absurdity that made the routine so hilarious is mind boggling.

When someone asked yesterday what kind of a woman would it make Lynne Cheney to go to Chippendale's .........I quipped, a woman I would like to have a drink with..........wrong answer!!!!! LOL!

[milagro]

It's okay, Howlin. When we get to Heaven, we'll know who the most self-rightous ones are: they'll have their doors shut so they'll never suspect they're not the only ones up there.

[shhrubbery!]

You know, I actually liked a lot of Laura's comic material.

The joke about the Texas Chain Saw Massacre was funny.
The joke about her mother-in-law was funny.
The joke about Kennebunkport and Crawford was funny.
The joke about the president's inability to pronounce "nuclear" was flat-out hilarious.
Even the joke about George's being a graduate of Yale/Andover, thus knowing nothing about ranching, was funny...until the last line. That joke had already had a punch line, and the additional obscene image was gratuitous and demeaning.

I don't think anyone has a problem with a wife's gently skewering her husband at a roast. But there is such a thing as getting too personal, too sarcastic, too bawdy, and too crude --especially when one is a First Lady who is giving a public performance.

Some here seem to want conservatives to act "hip" and to ape the Left in order to dispel a fuddy-duddy image.

My answer to that one can be funny AND have a good sense of humor, without crossing the line into MTV-style humor --which I agree, isn't even funny.

And the horse joke wasn't the only thing that made me uneasy about the First Lady's performance.

I thought she got off to a bad start with her too-personal jibe at the president, calling her husband "Mr. Excitement" --a pretty sarcastic thing to say in the context of the all the sexual innuendo about "Desperate Housewives" and Chippendales.

Laura Bush is physically a lovely lady, and unquestionably a vast improvement over her predecessor. But we should remember she was a long-time Democrat, and that she still harbors a lot of sympathy for the public-school-teacher-establishment.

I suspect that some of feminist, anti-male attitudes of that establishment have rubbed off on Laura, and she was out to impress that crowd --at the expense of her husband.

[CharacterCounts]

Thanks for the list of comments on the rude and crass remark.

perhaps I would be more sympathetic to those criticizing the First Lady if even one of the comments protesting the "whore" comment would have come from their side of this issue.

[Howlin]

Nor can those who think Laura Bush's performance was out of line can win without those of us who think it was just fine.

A lot of people don't want to acknowledge that, do they?

[Howlin]

Day 3? Has this been going on that long?

[Gabz]

Well said, Knitting.

[Servant of the 9]

I don't think Reagan had any problem with us in the party...as a matter of fact, he agreed with us.

If Reagan had run for president after the loonie christians got settled into the party, I doubt he could have been nominated.
No way y'all would have voted for a divorced man who as governor had signed what is still the most liberal abortion law in America and signed it before Roe vs. Wade, not to mention hadn't been inside a church in 20 years, baring weddings, funerals and campaigning.

While he had a strong faith he didn't have near enough religiosity or literalism to satisfy the loony christians.

So9

[plain talk]

Morally blind? I beg your pardon. There's nothing worth discussing here.

[Howlin]

Do I count in your 'usual suspect Christian basher' category?

You bet.

[Scothia]

Only a whore would talk this way in public.

You, sir (and I use the term "sir" loosely) are no gentleman. You prove yourself the male equivalent of what you accuse the First Lady.

[yellowdoghunter]

Show me where someone said they were speaking for ALL Christians??? No one did.


Good grief, quit harrassing people. If you don't like their comment, move on.

[fight_truth_decay]

It was funny because it is a very old funny farmer joke...and was intended to show a city slicker or blue blood could not tell the diff between a male and female farm animal...that was it. Anyone that thinks it was a beatiality joke is screwy.

Conclusion: This thread has turned screwy.

Jim is not my fault!! I know know not what I do..controvery again. Don't run this story for a week like the last one...PAAALLEEESE! ;) :(