Posted on 05/01/2005 4:54:50 AM PDT by Rebelbase
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - First Lady Laura Bush grabbed the stage from President Bush at the White House correspondents annual dinner on Saturday and confessed to all his early bedtimes had turned her into a "desperate housewife."
Laura Bush, who is often seen smiling sweetly at her husband's side, stood up just in time to rescue the audience of political heavyweights and Hollywood celebrities from Bush's retelling of a joke about steel rail "cattle guards" that bombed before a Montana town meeting in March.
"Not that old joke -- not again," Laura Bush said, as her husband willingly relinquished the stage.
"I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there," the First Lady told the audience. "Well, I've got a few things I want to say for a change."
One of her main targets was the president's bed time.
"I said to him the other day, 'George, if you really want to end tyranny in this world, you're going to have to stay up later,"' Laura Bush said. "Nine o'clock and Mr. Excitement here is in bed, and I am watching 'Desperate Housewives' -- with Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife."
Laura Bush also ribbed her husband for his notoriously rowdy youth, but said they were meant to be together.
"I was a librarian that spent 12 hours a day in the library. Yet somehow I met George."
Laura Bush's string of one-liners generated hearty laughs from the audience, which included celebrity names such as Richard Gere, Mary Tyler Moore, Venus and Serena Williams, Goldie Hawn and Elle MacPherson, as well as journalists and politicians.
The roasting continued as comedian Cedric the Entertainer took the stage, even though he conceded that "I thought I could follow the president. The first lady is something different."
He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has two sides to her, one that's all business and one that has street credibility.
"Condi is the person you see on television with the nice hair, and then there's Leezza, the one with her hair wrapped up on the phone with her girlfriends watching BET (Black Entertainment Television)."
"Blessed are those obscene in spirit, for they shall see sex everywhere... "
That's funny!
My point in that post was about how it's fashionable for women to put down their men in public -- to the detriment of our social fabric. And about how Laura went along with that fashion.
Laura's a lovely woman and a vast improvement over her predecessor.
But that doesn't mean I'm going to gush over everything she says. And I think a few of those jokes last night were very badly chosen.
Christians are FREE to love God and do as they please.
You didn't KNOW that???
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under live robber barons than under omnipotent moral busibodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good, will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." ~ C.S. Lewis
Poked fun? Let me correct that: It was more like he poked 'em in the eye. Some of them laughed nervously.
I did. Stephie had it on this AM
If you heard the joke to which swampfx refers, I don't think you could take it any other way.
I did take it another way. I'd explain it, but I imagine it would be a waste of my time and yours. You gutter guys shouldn't be spreading this crap. It lets too many of us see a disgusting side of you we'd rather think doesn't exist. Save it for DU.
Well said Gabz!
Well I'm an old farm girl. So I know from farmers' jokes.
The first lines of the joke (beginning with the Yale and Andover reference) were funny, and Laura could have stopped after the "George tried to milk a horse" part and still have gotten a good laugh.
In fact, the audience was obviously amused up to that point.
But did you see (and hear) the audience's reaction after the "male horse" line? THEY clearly didn't think it had "nothing to do with sex or masturbation."
Let's face it: It was a crude joke, and that was obvious to everybody. Unless you just fell off the turnip truck.
Thank you.
Not everyone is always thinking or talking about sex.......it's well known that he goes to bed early and to me all she did was rib him about it and insinuate that Dick Cheney does the same thing........thus her and Lynne Cheney watching television........SHEESH
Can you imagine any other president being secure enough in his own skin to put up with a public ribbing like that?
Yeah, probably -- the dinner has been a Washington tradition for 90 years, but dates back to the 1880s.
Are you a DU troll?
The dinner used to be strictly private and "off the record." It's only the last few years that the event was made public.
I agree!
Geesh, the cliche that "It's Pres. Bush's fault" seems to be speading to Laura, and in this forum, no less. Unbelievable!
I just thought of Laura's speech as cute and very funny. Even Christians have a sense of humor people! (I am, and I do).
I guess I have no tolerance for the "holier than thou" crowd. I actually have some of them in my own extended family, who think that just because they go to church on Sunday, gives them a pass to swear and backstab the rest of the week.
/rant
I'm a Christian mother of four who tries to set a good example for her children. I'm no prude (obviously I'm a fan of some Monty Python movies, and you can't be a prude and still enjoy them); but I'd be embarrassed for my children to watch Laura's performance last night.
Like I said before, I like Laura -- but that doesn't make me feel compelled to gush over everything she says. Or to pretend that something isn't wrong here. Some of those jokes were both funny and appropriate -- and some weren't.
I'll bet all of you would have a very different review of some of those jokes if it had been Hillary making them, instead of Laura.
Yep....now I see how people do think of sex from the whole desperate housewives show. I doubt he goes to bed that early every night *wink wink*. But, she did a great job...and she's the best first lady we've ever had. Just my opinion.
Have the courage to come out and say it: Not everything in this world is appropriate for children, either intellectually or in terms of subject matter. If we demand that everything we see, read and listen to is appropriate for a child, then very soon we will begin to think like children.
In any given comedy routine, all jokes are not equal. It's an art not a science. And in a roast, there should be an ebb and flow... stick the dagger in, and then gently pull it back out. You don't have to gush over every joke equally, but it's silly to think you should have an expectation at an adult evening roast that none should ever cross over your personal line.
I would, and so would Hillary.
The joke (re milking cows) has been around since I was a kid. You're thinking of things in a sexual way is my guess, a lot of the rest of us in a mechancial way.
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