Bush pokes fun at himself, staff
WASHINGTON — President Bush poked fun at his staff, his Democratic challenger and himself Wednesday night at a black-tie dinner where he hobnobbed with the news media.
Bush put on a slide show, calling it the “White House Election-Year Album” at the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association 60th annual dinner, showing himself and his staff in some decidedly unflattering poses.
There was Bush looking under furniture in a fruitless, frustrating search. “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” he said.
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4596717/ns/politics/t/bush-pokes-funat-himself-staff/#.UyIeh2co_csMcAuliffe's Republican counterpart, Ed Gillespie, responded by saying people need to lighten up, that the president made the comment in jest.
He noted that the correspondents at the dinner laughed when the president made the remark.
"There is a long-standing tradition of the president making light of serious matters and self-deprecating humor" at the dinner, he said.
"The people in the room obviously saw the humor in it at that moment. And to play it back now in a different context is unfair, frankly, I have to say."
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/26/bush.wmd.jokes/Quotes from Lapdogs: How the Press Lay Down for the Bush White House by Eric Boehlert
On National Review Online, conservative talk show host Michael Graham, who attended the Correspondents dinner, mocked the critics: "Somehow, over the past 30 years, liberalism has mutated into something akin to an anti-comedy vaccine. The more you're Left, the less you laugh."
The supposedly liberal Los Angeles Times completely agreed. In an unsigned editorial, the paper belittled Democrats and anyone else who had the nerve to question Bush's sense of wartime humor, or daring to question Beltway tradition: "The truly serious thing about what's known as Washington's 'Silly Season' is whether presidents rise to the challenge."
On Fox News, there was heated agreement between Sunday News anchor Chris Wallace and the network's Washington bureau managing editor, Brit Hume, that Bush's WMD jokes were perfectly acceptable.
Wallace:"I still think it's funny."
Hume: "I thought it was a good-natured performance."
Washington Post news reporter and Fox panelist Cecil Connelly concurred: "The pictures were funny. I laughed at the photos."
(pgs 231-232 transcription mine)
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