I don’t know why anyone even bothers writing political satire at all, Laura Bush is putting everybody to shame. She made a few pretty raunchy jokes at the expense of her husband and the White House correspondence dinner last night. As August Pollak put it, “Laura Bush: my husband’s a moron who once jerked off a horse.”
“I am married to the President of the United States and here is our typical evening. Nine o’clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep, and I am watching Desperate Housewives. With Lynne Cheney. Ladies and gentleman, I am a desperate housewife. I mean if those women on that show think they’re desperate, they ought to be with George. One night after George went to bed, Lynne Cheney, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes and I went to Chippendales….I won’t tell you what happened, but Lynne’s Secret Service code name is now Dollar Bill.”
“George always says that he’s delighted to come to these press dinners. Baloney. He’s usually in bed by now. I’m not kidding. I said to him the other day, George, if you really want to end tyranny in the world, you’re going to have to stay up later.”
“The amazing thing is that George and I were just meant to be. I was a librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George.”
“People often wonder what my mother-in-law is really like. People think she’s a sweet, grandmotherly Aunt Bee type. She’s actually more like Don Corleone.”
“I’m proud of George. He’s learned a lot about ranching since that first year when he tried to milk the horse. What’s worse, it was a male horse.”
“George’s answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw. Which I think is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.”
She also pointed out that she was capable of pronouncing “nuclear” properly. This is for real, I saw the tape on TV today.
Apparently these correspondence dinners are generally used for the President to take a moment to poke fun at himself. The word among columnists seems to be that Clinton had a bit more fun with this, and Bush has some trouble coming up with ideas. Last year, this columnist for The Nation watched with dismay at Bush’s light attitude towards the failure to find weapons of mass destruction:
But at one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere.”
The audience laughed. I grimaced. But that wasn’t the end of it. After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. “Nope,” he said. “No weapons over there.” More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: “Maybe under here.” Laughter again.
What do I get out of this? We’ve all been wagging the finger at the male Bushes for evil policy and general conspiracy, but Laura lets us all know it’s really Barbara. “She’s more like Don Corleone.” I can just see Barbara after the speech: “You’re a disgrace to the family, Laura. You’ve said too much.”