'Desperate Housewife' Laura Grabs Stage from Bush

(Reuters) ^ | 5/1/05 | By Karey Wutkowski

[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)."

[Clemenza]

Farmer Fran the Church Lady has been obsessive about this issue. I thought it was HILARIOUS myself (though not nearly as hilarious as some of the posts on this thread).

[durasell]

They seem let down. What did they imagine Washington to be?

[durasell]

p.s.

At least nobody told the "Aristocrats" joke. They'd be bouncing off the walls.

[sully777]

But did you see (and hear) the audience's reaction after the "male horse" line?

If Laura Bush made a joke about George keeping a whore house at his Crawford ranch, this crowd would still call her "classy" and, even more incredibly, "funny."

The party that ended slavery, that had heroic ideals, that knew the difference between humor and trash-culture is either dead, or close to it. When a Republican First lady can get up there and repeat pandering gag lines for a pack of divorce-culture buffoons from the National Press Club, we are in sad, sad shape

---

Bible humor 101
St. Paul of Tarsus quips to the Galatians "And I, brethren if I still preach circumcision, why do I suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased. I wish that those who trouble you would even cut themselves off." Ouch! That's some crude, blue humor for the Bible.

On the subject of whorehouses, Washington DC had so many that congressmen were known to openly frequent them daily up until the turn of the century. I'm sure some of the guys in "the party that freed the slaves" were regulars.

Speaking of freeing the slaves, Carl Sandburg said of Abraham Lincoln that his humor was sharp, witty, and blue on occasion.

And one of the greatest american statemen, Benjamin Franklin wrote many articles on the art of infidelity. His humor was peppered regularly with wry earthy observations.

Yes, let's all yearn for the good old days and mourn our moral descent. Meanwhile, the first lady is not as perverse as you make her out to be. I've heard more blue humor from priests and pastors than I had from her.

[durasell]

I am shocked, shocked I tell ya, to hear that our Founding Fathers thought about sex or humor...or had the nerve to combine the two.

[sully777]

At least nobody told the "Aristocrats" joke. They'd be bouncing off the walls.

---

Let's here it. That whole milking thing is old, like beating a dead horse.

[durasell]

The "aristocrats" can't be told online. I'm sure there's a download of a version....somewhere. And someone recently made a movie about the joke.

But here's the deal with it. The joke dates back to the earliest days of vaudeville and is a "right of passage" for young comics, though hardly ever told in front of an audience. It's primarily told to other comics.

The joke begins like this: A family of four (sometimes five or six) goes into a talent agent's office. The agent asks, "what do you do?" and the family launches into the filthiest, most obscene act that can be imagined. This is where the comic's creativity comes in -- making up something so obscene that other comics beg him to stop. The joke always ends the same way: the talent agent -- stunned -- asks, "What do you call yourselves?" And the father says, "The Aristocrats!"

When I used to hang out among comics I heard several tell the joke. What is alarming is when a comic that never "works blue" tells it.

[sully777]

When I used to hang out among comics I heard several tell the joke. What is alarming is when a comic that never "works blue" tells it.

---

A man that holds his tongue has the most to say.

Hanging out with comics would be an interesting blog.

[durasell]

I like comics. Always have. It's the toughest job in show business. Stand Ups have a mic, a stool and a glass of water. That's it. The other thing -- you don't need a college degree. You don't have to be beautiful. And no formal training is require. If you can stand up on stage in with a mic, stool and glass of water and make an audience laugh, then you're a success. If you can't make them laugh, then you fail.

On the other hand, comics are also the most deranged people in show business. They make broadway divas look like actuaries.

[MHT]

Frankly, I thought the jokes stank. These reminded me of the ones that the daughters told at the Republican convention. It's undermining. He deserves better treatment than that and even if those things are said at home in jest, they deserve to stay private.

They are only giving the likes of Bill Maher and company food for monologues. Even putting herself and other female role models in a league with the likes of Desperate Housewives is demeaning.

Laura is an absolutely lovely First Lady. He's a real man of depth and sincere confidence. She can deliver it and he can take it--but their spontaneous humor is better than anything their jokemeisters came up with.

[genefromjersey]

To all you hand wringers: yes,it was a "raw" routine in spots. It was intended to be. It was a roast.

In case you missed the point,the idea of a roast is to poke fun at someone-preferably a celebrity-who is secure enough to handle being ribbed.

Roasts of this sort have been going on for decades.

As to those of you who are charter members of the Junior Anti-Sex League...what can I say ?

(Okay,I'll try: Righteousness and Prudery are not necessarily synomynous(sp?))

[pissant]

I dislike all crude jokes. I'm such a prude, as you well know. (just be sure not to look at any of my threads...)

[farmer18th]

St. Paul started his missive, I believe, to the Galations by calling them stupid. Too bad he isn't around to scold Freeper reprobates, who are so bent on defending the home team they can't cry foul on one of our own. (Can you honestly imagine him praising Laura Bush for making a joke of marital infidelity? Be truthful.) Both Franklin and Lincoln knew the difference between private and public pronouncements, by the way, unless you can find a blue story related from the bully pulpit itself.

[Matchett-PI]

farmer18th: "Are you, or are you not, defending Laura Bush's incredibly poor Christian witness? Would Paul, or Jesus, or Peter have praised a sister who makes a joke about going to a strip joint? Is that--or is that not--your Christian witness? Let's get specific."

Matchett-PI: "How about you spend your time worrying about your "Christian witness", and let her worry about hers.

farmer18th: "That's good advice for everyone--especially Christians in the public eye. It would be very good advice for the Bush family."

Matchett-PI: "Who are you to judge another's servant? To his own master he stands or falls. Indeed, he WILL BE MADE TO STAND, for God is able to make him stand. [Rom.14:4]

A Christian is FREE to love God and do as he pleases."

farmer18th: "Murder? Adultery? Theft? Covetousness? Really? You have a very free world in deed--and it sounds something like Hell."

A Christian is FREE to love God and do as he pleases.

"If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother, he is a liar ... And this commandment [which sums up all commandments] we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also." [1 John 4:20-21]

Love does no harm to a neighbor (adultry, murder, theft, false witness, coveting his possessions, and if there be any other commandment, all are summed up in this saying, namely, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."); therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. [Rom.13:10]

Sin = breaking the New Testament law of Christ [summed up above].

"Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness and sin IS lawlessness." [1 John3:4]

I have asked you to provide me with a list of names of those who don't "break the law" (sin). I notice that you STILL haven't been able to provide me with those names.

You haven't even offered your own name. Does that mean that you're admitting to be a "law breaker", yourself??? Does that mean you're actually admitting that even all the so-called "righteous deeds" you do (works), are viewed as menstrual rags to God? [Isa.64:6]

But don't worry, if you're reeeeeeally a Christian, and the righteousness of the sinless One (Christ) has been imputed to your account, God only sees Jesus when he looks at you. [1 John 5:11-13; 3:9; 4:10; 2:1-2]

Propitiate: "To gain or regain the favor or goodwill of."

Propitiation: "Something that propitiates; specifically: an antoning sacrifice."

Propitiatory: "Expiatory"

Expiate: "To put an end to. To extinguish the guilt incurred by. To pay the penalty for. To make amends for. To make expiation for (breaking the law ie: sinning)

Spiritually immature legalists - so accurately depicted by the SNL "Church Lady" character - just HATE to hear that the sins of Christians (past, present and future) have already been paid for.bttt

farmer18th: "I would caution you, in the strongest possible terms, that you are unfit to be preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ because you have turned it into a false-grace anarchy."

And I would caution you in the strongest possible terms that the "witness" you have telegraphed to many reading this thread proves you to be no different than the witness given by the "religious zealots" whose "legalism" Jesus constantly denounced, to wit:

"God, I thank you that I am not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess [and don't tell stallion milking or Chippendale nightclub carousing jokes]."

"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

"Isn't THAT special???"

[MikefromOhio]

LOL!!!

As for me, I have never told or heard a dirty joke in my entire life!!!

That entire roast hurt my little virgin ears!!!

/sarcasm

[pissant]

Where did you find my picture?

[TheBigB]

[pissant]

I thought, darn I gotta make sure Mike can't watch such filth! Where's Algores V-chip when you need it!

[Matchett-PI]

"Where did you find my picture?"

Luke 10:31-32

[The Incredible One]

Good grief..I fell over laughing. Laura Bush - 2008..