First lady succeeds in reading a dozen tame jokes,
making inside-the-beltway geeks titter
"First lady knocks 'em dead with monologue" was the story here in Chicago, where our Tribune actually included a streaming video of Laura Bush's "performance" at the White House Correspondents' Association annual dinner.
Thinking the Trib had simply gone a bit overboard, I didn't even bother with a blog entry on the subject, even though correspondent Pete Weissman had sent me what passes for an insider's article from The International Herald Tribune about Landon Parvin, the speechwriter and ghost-joker who has specialized in this sort of humor for Republicans since he started writing speeches for President Reagan more than twenty years ago. (The better-known Al Franken and lesser-known Mark Katz are Parvin's Democrat counterparts.)
Parvin knows this stuff is crap and that his job is easy. He said in the Herald Tribune article that presidents always get laughs. "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."
Apparently they expect first ladies to be even less funny. That must be why, when Laura Bush delivered her safe Parvin humor about how the president goes to bed early at night and how she is a "desperate house wife," the place erupted and the media couldn't shut up about it for a day and a half.
Parvin said it himself about this old ritual of journalists pretending to laugh at lamely delivered presidential comedy: "In the scheme of things, it's not important."
Then why on earth are we spending tax dollars on it? (We are spending tax dollars on it, are we not? I'm guessing, at least $10,000 of them.)
More alarmingly, why is Wolf Blitzer filling up his precious time on CNN with highlights of Laura "Leno" Bush (as the president witlessly called her the next day) at the expense of truly funny stories.
Did I ever tell you the one about the runaway bride?
Comments (2)
David -- I think the Washington press corps goes crazy with stuff like this because, ultimately, presidential roasts are all about the Washington press corps -- and what could be more important than that?
And did I tell you the one about the fiance of the runaway bride who still wanted to marry her?
Posted by GlynnYoung | May 3, 2005 2:06 PM
Posted on May 3, 2005 14:06
Oh, Glynn, don't get me started. Ooops. Too late.
The Washington press corps--the same "reporters" who use, apparently without embarrassment, that hateful term "the American people."
(Never "Americans." No, that would sound like GENERALIZING.)
Instead, it's "the American people," as in, "the American people won't stand for this," or "the American people will forgive that," or, "say what you will about the American people ....."
Who are these American people? Are they my Polish neighbor, the one who calls me "the idiot" because I am a yuppie? Are they the yuppies? Are they the parents of the poor kids my wife teaches in the inner city? Are they Donald Trump and the people who go on his show? Are they aging pot-smokers? Are they young Republicans? Who are these American people we keep hearing about???
More to the point, who are these insular boors who seem to think they know who I am and who you are, and why do we pay them any mind at all?
And by "we," I do not mean the American people!
I mean AMERICANS.
Whew!
Posted by David Murray | May 3, 2005 8:14 PM
Posted on May 3, 2005 20:14