Dinner Sets the Tone
May 1st, 2006Briefly, I apologize for the lack of posts yesterday and if you’ve had any problems with the page loading. The site’s undergoing some maintenance, but will be okay soon. To business!
Saturday night was the White House correspondent’s dinner, the annual event where the press throws a party for itself and the President is expected to make jokes about himself before someone else gets to make jokes about them. The dinner has a delightful history of offending the President, something which happened as recently as the Clinton years when Don Imus devoted an hour to making jokes about the President’s wife. The next year, Al Franken quipped, “Here’s my impersonation of Don Imus at FDR’s dinner: ‘For those of you listening on the radio, the President is a cripple.’” Last night was Stephen Colbert’s chance to call the President a cripple, and he sure ran with it. Among his jokes were these gems: ” I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”
Truth be told, I saw the comedic value of most of his jokes except that one. I thought that was a classless joke, and from what I can tell, it seems to have been the one to offend Bush most, hopefully for the same reason it bothered me. You see, when the country’s at war, I want the country to win. And when the military is rebuilding a nation that has been devastated by war, I want the military to succeed. When a country is made better off, and children now have schools, and people now don’t worry about being gassed by their government, I want that to be praised, not ignored or belittled as too little — as nothing.
I thought Colbert’s jokes were good, and I especially enjoyed the wisecracks about the Valerie Plame affair. That is something worthy of satirical jabs, like it would be if Bush were caught drinking vodka out of a coffee mug in a meeting with the Swiss Ambassador. But Colbert cracked jokes about reality, such as this one which came after advising the President to ignore his low poll numbers after saying they were based on reality, adding, “reality has a well-known liberal bias.” Sadly, there’s no “reality basis” in Iraq’s case, because Iraq is a mess, and we should pull out with our M-16s between our legs because we’re fueling terrorism and we’ve turned Iraq into but a shell of its former great self.
Bush’s comedic input last night was restricted to talking with a stage double. At least it wasn’t Laura Bush’s “my husband masturbates horses because he’s dumb” routine from last year. I thought last year’s event was symbolic for the haplessness of the President’s situation, since no properly-functioning White House would allow the First Lady to tell an audience that her husband masturbates horses, even in jest. This year’s correspondent’s dinner was representative of the fact that the Presidency is occupied by a man with less political capital than Jimmy Carter in his darkest days. Could you imagine someone cracking these jokes about Iraq two years ago, three — last year, even? — to Bush’s face? Or can you see someone telling Bush that they’re ashamed of him and his leadership? Bush’s influence is at its lowest ebb, and that is probably the most meaningful thing to be seen last night.