Posted on 03/10/2002 3:38:13 PM PST by STARWISE
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush (news - web sites) and Sen. Tom Daschle, potential rivals in 2004, smothered each other in satire at the 117th Gridiron dinner as the capital's political elite lapped up a laugh-packed respite from war.
After musical skits mined humor from a harrowing year of terrorism, anthrax, corporate bankruptcy and war, Bush closed the show Saturday night with a lighthearted jab at Daschle's presidential aspirations.
"What are you going to run on, Tom?" Bush asked the Democrat from South Dakota, suggesting that he intends to co-opt Daschle's issues for re-election.
"Patients Bill of Rights? I'm for it."
"Enron? I'm against it."
"Campaign reform? I'll sign it."
"Child care, Tom? I'm going to expand child care to those who don't even have children," Bush said as laughter filled the hotel ballroom. "Medicare, Tom? Under my plan, you don't have to be sick."
"You don't even have to be old," he said.
Earlier, Daschle suggested that Bush's high wartime approval ratings may be fleeting.
"Nobody's approval ratings have been as high as President Bush's since ... his father's," Daschle said with a grin. Former President Bush lost re-election after winning the popular Persian Gulf War (news - web sites).
Daschle drew the loudest laugh when he mocked his own reputation as a senator willing to do anything to block Bush's legislative agenda.
"Hi, my name's Tom. I'm an obstructionist," Daschle said to open his address.
He said Bush once asked him to pass the salt, and he couldn't do it. "I can't bring myself to pass anything," the senator said.
The night's scene-stealer was Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), who sneaked on stage with his wife, Lynne, to dance to a musical spoof of his hideaway habit; Cheney slips in and out of secure, undisclosed locations to protect the continuity of government in case of a terrorist attack.
As the Gridiron players belted out their lyrics ("There is a dark, secluded place. A veep can sleep, without a trace. And no one ever see his face — Dick Cheney's hideaway!"), the vice president doffed his top hat and his wife clasped the stem of a rose in her teeth.
After a few well-practiced steps, the vice president ended with a big leg kick and Mrs. Cheney tossed the rose high into the audience.
Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) chief Christie Whitman came closest to violating the Gridiron golden rule — singe, don't burn — as she chided fellow Republicans for their opposition to abortion and perceived indifference to the environment.
Whitman, who has often been named as a vice presidential prospect, said she was excited to learn in 2000 that she was on Bush's short list. "It turned out to be the short list of Republicans who care about the environment," she said.
A few Republicans groaned as others in the audience laughed.
Bush jabbed back, noting that Whitman had given him a dog. "I gave her EPA. Now we both have messes to clean up," he said.
Bush added: "The first thing I did when I got that dog was to change its name. I said, `Christie. What in the hell kind of name is Kyoto?" Kyoto is the name of a global warming (news - web sites) treaty rejected by Bush against Whitman's advice.
The presidential zingers hit several other targets, including:
_Cheney, who absences might be "causing marital strain, if you know what I mean." Bush said with a smirk. He claimed to have asked Lynne if the separations were a problem, and she replied: `He's gone?'"
_Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites), who angered conservatives during a recent MTV appearance by urging condom use. Bush noted that former President Clinton (news - web sites), appearing on the same music network, discussed his underwear. "Colin, of course, recommended wearing something else."
_His own reputation for being a hands-off administrator. "Life has sure changed" since the Sept. 11 attacks, he said. "A year ago Dick Cheney was running the country. Today, he lives out of a little suitcase."
As is tradition, each speaker ended on a serious note.
Whitman said Bush is truly an environmentalist. Daschle praised Bush for "strong and steadfast" leadership in war. The president paid tribute to soldiers slain in Afghanistan (news - web sites), as well as to Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and killed in Pakistan.
Pearl's wife, Mariane, is pregnant. Bush asked journalists to write the soon-to-be-born son about his father, and said he would do the same.
"May God bless Daniel Pearl and Mariane Pearl and her boy," Bush said. "And may the world he enters into be more peaceful than the one his father just left."
Now that we've had our fun, let's get back to stomping the H*** out of the 'HOLE and his hateful little (Socialist) Democrat Party.
I hope he was joking.
I would love to see it though. Loved the comments about child care and medicare.
As usual, W ended with the right touch and the comments about Danny Pearl.
BTW, I love it when Dasshole shows up in these kinds of situations. He just can't bring along his stool, and he ends up being shorter than most of the women in the event.
That's NOT funny!
This line probably offended the stupid Red Cross. Boycott the Red Cross.
Politics: Beltway humor served up at annual Gridiron Club dinner
By LAWRENCE L. KNUTSON, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (March 9, 2002 8:13 p.m. EST) - The journalists of Washington's Gridiron Club distilled political humor Saturday from a harrowing year of terrorism, anthrax, corporate bankruptcy and war.
President Bush, the 20th president to be singed on the Gridiron since 1885, endured a white-tie evening of musical skits set in places ranging from Guantanamo Bay to Vice President Dick Cheney's "undisclosed secure location."
Cheney's secret shelter is a place much like "Hernando's Hideaway."
"There is a dark, secluded place. A veep can sleep, without a trace. And no one ever sees his face - Dick Cheney's hideaway!"
Delivering the annual dinner's traditional lights-out "speech in the dark," Gridiron president Marianne Means of Hearst Newspapers said, "A year ago we didn't even know there was an axis of evil.
"Now we do: Enron, Arthur Andersen and Global Crossing."
Later, the "axis of evil" was redefined as the skating judges at the Winter Olympics.
Opening the evening, Gridiron members stripped away the black burqa concealing a captured "terrorist," revealing veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas, said to have terrorized every president since John F. Kennedy.
Freed from the burqa, Thomas serenaded the current president with a chorus of "Hell-ooo Dubya."
The anthrax scare was recalled in a tribute to Cipro, the antibiotic tablet.
"Now when we go up to the Hill, we take precautions. This little pill. A patriotic antibiotic. We're taking Cipro."
Those seeking business advantage from the war got this serenade, to the tune of "What a Wonderful World":
"I see stacks of green, tax breaks in sight, business is good, when soldiers fight. And I say to myself, what a lucrative war."
The Taliban and al-Qaida prisoners being held at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba were not forgotten as the band played the theme from "Cabaret":
"We'll feed you Fruit Loops and granola. Would you like a Coca-Cola? ... Welcome to Gitmo Bay, old chum, welcome to Camp X-Ray."
Attorney General John Ashcroft was found to have a few "Favorite Things." They include: "Secret tribunals and racial profiling, intimate things that I find so beguiling, listening in when your telephone rings, these are a few of my favorite things."
For one song, at least, reporters trained the cannons on themselves:
"Pompous pundits from the press, here to whine and second-guess. We dodged the war in '68. Now we're at war: The Fourth Estate."
And Daschole was trotting along behind Bush with a stupid grin on his face as if to say, "Look at me, recognize me, thank me." Everybody else looked pleasant, but serious. Daschole looked manic.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.