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)."
I'm a big city girl and didn't find it to be a crude joke - I thought it was hilarious.
And I thought the audience did as well.
Interpretation of humor is an objective thing - it's one thing for some to not understand another's reaction - but no 2 people are the same thus the reaction will be different....not wrong, just different.
I found nothing wrong with her routine - others did - no one's wrong, but there is nothing wrong with not understand why.
I do think the public utterances of a First Lady should meet a higher standard, however.
That doesn't mean she has to be a grumpy old prude. Most of the script was very funny without the offending lines.
I didn't say that you said it -- that's what is implied by some of the other posters. But you hinted at the idea that it was an "adult function." (I use the word "adult" in the best possible way).
And another thing (as I continue to rant) the word "adult" has been completely misunderstood and misued. Now it's usually taken to describe something purely sexual -- when in fact it should be used to describe something that deals with complex subject matters. Richard III is an "adult play." The Sun Also Rises is an "Adult Book." Don G is an "Adult Opera."
If we continue to dumb down and disapprove of adult type content, then we eliminate half of the world's great literature and most of its music.
I caught the performance while watching Fox News last night. It happened that I had just turned on Fox. Geraldo was saying that Laura had just bumped her husband from the podium, and everyone was curious what she was up to. Then Laura began, and she was hilarious! Geraldo said afterwards that Laura's timing was incredulous, and that she had a great sense of comedy! Laura also had some funny lines about Barbara. But, as everyone who saw it says, at the end she said that one of the great things about marrying George was that he brought along such a nice large family and all those wonderful in-laws (since she had been an only-child).
Seems to me it's possible for a First Lady to be funny, but still dignified and respectful of her husband, and of the office of the presidency, at a public event.
She could have kept with the spirit of a "roast" and good-naturedly skewered her husband in a way that didn't cross over anybody's "personal line" -- and she did that very well with some of her jokes (the pronunciation of "nuclear" joke, for example).
But let's be honest: Some of the script played into the hands of our feminized culture that thinks it's funny to laugh at mens' supposed inadequacy. And some was reminiscent of MTV-style comedy and Bill Clinton's 'boxers or briefs' moment. And one joke ended up being just plain crude with the addition of an unnecessary last line.
So let's see --it was BAD when Bill Clinton played along with off color humor, and demeaned his office with "TMI" -- but it was GOOD when Laura did it? Sorry, but that's hypocrisy to me.
But enough already with this topic.
It's probably not "just you" but it's sure not me. I loved it!
That is too stupid to say. If God didn't want us to laugh, we couldn't. As apparently you can't.
Agreed. Enough already with this topic.
Nothing's funny when it's completely dissected beyond recognition.
Nothing's funny when it's completely dissected beyond recognition.
I beg to differ: Frogs and fetal pigs are hysterical when dissected.
Good Grief woman.............The Annual Correspondent's dinner is for ADULTS not CHILDREN. Her routine came on at 10pm last night on the east coast.....long past the bed time of most "children."
Considering the milieu - all of her jokes were funny and appropriate.
Had Hillary been able to deliver them in the same way.....they would have been funny.....but that is just the point - everyone's notion of Laura Bush and then her delivery made her entire routine absolutely hilarious.
EXACTLY!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah I saw it it was very funny but what the hell was Jane Fonda doing there.
You are right on.
I just saw the replay on CSpan 1 and Laura was absolutely fantastic. Nothing she said was vulgar, or could even be construed as vulgar.
She adores our President, and was having the most fun - and he was clearly enjoying himself as well.
Mr. Excitement! I'm still LOL.
Lucianne has a thread in her must read section. A download is available for those who haven't seen the rerun of our Laura.
Um, do you know where the genitals of a male horse are versus the udder of a cow? Like much humor, it was so far out, unbelievable and silly that it made you laugh. Unless you had an IQ of 10 you wouldn't make that mistake or had such a filthy mind that you thought of it as giving a horse some kind of sexual satisfaction.
farmer18th: "So, you're in the first church of "let-us-sin-that-grace-may-abound?"
You'll get the same answer the apostle Paul gave the spiritually immature in his day: Romans 6:2, 22; 8:2, 15; Gal.3:13
Those who are set free, are free. You didn't KNOW that?
"Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed." ~ Jesus [John 8:36]
Please list the all the ways you think that Jesus didn't "really mean it" when he said Christians are free, ace.
Unamused bump.
Your analysis was spot on! This was all meant in sarcastic humorous fun.
The horse joke is farm humor! I've heard the old farmers in my family tell similar jokes and yes some here need to get their minds out of the gutter.
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