Posted on 05/02/2005 8:23:14 AM PDT by areafiftyone
LOL. I'm so over that. Though whoever whined to the moderator is a flippin wuss.
White House Letter: Joke writer to the stars of Washington politics
Elisabeth Bumiller
MONDAY, MAY 2, 2005
WASHINGTON When Laura Bush wise-cracked at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner on Saturday night that she was a "desperate housewife" married to a man who was sound asleep by 9 p.m., a slight, worried man stood in the wings hanging on to every line. As well he might, since he had written most of them for the first lady's inaugural act as a stand-up comic.
Judging from the laughter at her words - "George's answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chain saw, which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well" - Landon Parvin, joke writer to the political stars, could relax.
Bush not only made fun of her husband (and Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld) but also of her mother-in-law, the former first lady Barbara Bush, whom she likened to Don Corleone in "The Godfather."
She described time spent at her in-laws' summer home in Maine like this: "First prize, three days' vacation with the Bush family. Second prize, 10 days."
Parvin, who normally writes jokes for the president, also wrote jokes and presidential speeches for Ronald Reagan and is remembered in Washington for the lyrics to "Secondhand Clothes," the song that Nancy Reagan performed at the 1982 correspondents' dinner lampooning her taste in designers.
Although Parvin was loath to speak about how he cooked up one-liners for the current first lady - "I shouldn't be talking, I like being my little mole-ish self" - he did speak before and after the dinner about presidential stand-up comedy in general.
"In the scheme of things, it's not important," Parvin said. "But everybody wants to do well. Someone said humor is like standing up naked in front of an audience, then turning around and saying, 'What do you think?"'
The one advantage that he has in writing for presidents, he said, is that it's easier to get a laugh. "I noticed it first with Reagan," Parvin said. "Reagan would come into the East Room, and he would have a little throwaway line, and it would get a laugh, and it wouldn't have gotten a laugh with most people. What it did was break the tension. It's the unexpected, I guess. People don't expect presidents to be funny."
In Bush's case, her routine was her husband's idea. Tradition calls for the president to deliver one-liners to the 2,500 White House correspondents and guests at the Gridiron dinner in the Washington Hilton ballroom, but Bush has now done that three times. His wife agreed to step in, then sat down with Parvin and Susan Whitson, her press secretary, to work on ideas.
Playing off "Desperate Housewives," the racy hit U.S. television show, was a natural, even though Whitson said in a brief interview after the dinner that Bush had never actually seen it. Whitson said the first lady had heard about the characters and plot from her twin daughters, Jenna and Barbara, who are fans, and was planning to watch the entire first season on a DVD she has at home.
Once Parvin finished his script, Bush had several days of rehearsals, including one shortly before the dinner. She went on right after dessert, as the president was at the lectern launching into his worst jokes from the 2004 campaign.
Laura Bush suddenly got up and "interrupted" her husband, saying "not that old joke, not again." Then she added, as the audience laughed: "I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. I've got a few things I want to say for a change." Whitson said that while the president was in on the setup, he did not know what his wife would say, and he reacted mostly by guffawing with a bright red face.
Parvin, who said writing a speech about the Iran-contra scandal was a lot easier than writing jokes, termed self-deprecating humor essential for presidents. As a joke writer, he said, his most important task is to meld personality and topicality.
"First of all, you get the person's character in your head," he said. "But a lot depends on what's going on at the time. It's just a feeling that's in the air. So you take that feeling and distill it down to lines that reflect the perception of that person's character."
Parvin, 56, writes for Republicans but also for Democrats whom he likes, such as Bill Clinton's friend Vernon Jordan and Robert Strauss, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He is the son of a University of Illinois accountant and says that he was a well-liked but unfunny misfit growing up. In 1981, he was writing for the Hill & Knowlton public relations firm when he got a job as a Reagan speechwriter.
He now writes serious speeches for politicians and executives from his home in Fredericksburg, Virginia, but is called in every year to do Bush's routines for four Washington events: the Gridiron; the Alfalfa Club; a radio and television correspondents' dinner; and the White House press dinner. Bush, he said, "works on the script, and practices, and takes it seriously." Parvin (and the president) have had one recent bomb, however: Bush's joke at the radio and television dinner last year that "those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere" as a slide showed the president rummaging under the Oval Office furniture.
Parvin, who said his job is to remain in the background, begged off having his picture taken.
"Just say I look like a withered Brad Pitt," he said.
E-mail: pagetwo@iht.com
Is your tagline about Imus?
:o)
Read the article at the link areafiftyone provided above (here). It says, in part:
In the wide-ranging talk, Mr. Bush touched on such seemingly disparate topics as the excessive use of lighting in gay dance clubs, the misperception that the Toyota Prius is a 'gay' car, and the need to roll back regulations that are keeping the nuclear power industry tied up in knots.
Someone's doing satire.
Other stories today on The Swift Report include "Fox Poll Shows Delay Not Most Unpopular Man in America", "After Britney, Americans Divided on which GOP Starlet Likely to Conceive Next", and "Home School U? More Students Being Home Schooled through College Years"
I also note that the Swift report has another "letter" from The Coalition for Traditional Values. On this one, DeLong is just a signatory of another group-- the "Baptist Leadership Coucil". A Google search on Roy DeLong" and "Baptist Leadership Council" does not inspire confidence that there is such a person with such a group.
Looking at some of the other names, I cannot find any evidence that they even exist. For example, "Lewis Sheldrick" is the signer for the Coaltion of Traditional Values. A google search on Lewis Sheldrick results in no hits beyond the Swift Report and two other (left) blogs.
So yeah, I think someone is doing a hoax.
http://swiftreport.blogs.com/news/
Read the past blogs this is a "satire" site. The article is not real. They celebrate the fact that some of their "stories" have made the MSM.
Actually if you think about it, it is quite funny.
DU must be going ape
some people need to get realistic about marriage these days. It takes a sense of humor to survive a marriage in today's world.
I will say that my visual of President Bush milking a male horse was rather strong. Puts new meaning to the phrase "getting a grip."
I thoroughly enjoyed her humor, as I always do. However, I just wish she would not have used Desperate Housewives. It was cute; but why give free advertisment to such a disgusting, IMHO, sitcom?
I'm not a prude. I am just tired of the sex and violence on TV, movies, and teen music. Just count how many lawyer, police, and detective programs on TV each night. They always deal with murder, and rape. It has become overbearing.
The quote Free Republic in another article about hybrid cars. I have no idea about this website. This is very bizarre.
I hope it is a satire sight.
Swift Report is a satire.
All the excusing on this thread makes me wonder...
See 1 Corinthians 10:23-33
I'm a little dense today (or every day depending on who you talk to), but I'm unclear as to the point you are trying to make.
It seems that you disapprove of Laura's comments for being a little too much a part of this world, or did I simply miss your sarcasm?
This was a show. An act. Put on by both George and Laura. For the sake of a chuckle. Are there Biblical admonitions specific to that type of situation?
Anyone here seen my perspective, I seem to have misplaced mine.
These fruitcakes need to stop pulling the waistband of underpants up to their armpits.
Now I know where the leftwing wackjobs go when they are looking to cite an example of religious extremism.
Maybe they were really conservative Muslims?
I looked at the web page for this "Coalition for Traditional Values" and did not see any such official statement.
http://www.traditionalvalues.org/
Also, the chairman of this organization is NOT Roy DeLong.
Rev. Louis P. Sheldon is the Chairman and founder of Traditional Values Coalition. Rev. Sheldon grew up in Washington D.C. and studied History at Michigan State University. He received his Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1960 and served for 25 years as an ordained minister.
I wonder if this article has any validity?
Anytime I hear the words "Decency" or "Public Health", I automaticaly stop listening to their arguements since I know there's a freedom grabbing bill on its way.
I am female. I believe in Jesus. I thught she was hilarious.
Who in the world are these folks? I guess they did not see the president sitting there "approving" of her hits.
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