2007 Correspondent Dinner Host: I'm "Basically A Republican"...Reagan-Like Jokes "Without The Edge"...
Each spring, the White House Correspondents' Association hosts the President and other subsidiary potentates for an evening of obligatory conviviality and moderate drinking. Once every decade or so, someone mistakenly makes news at the correspondents' dinner by saying something ruthless and true about the President. Such was the case last year, when Stephen Colbert committed the sin of humor in the presence of President Bush. "I stand by this man," Colbert said, gesturing toward Bush, who was on the dais a few feet away. "I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares."
This year, no such insults will be directed at the President, because the correspondents' association has hired as entertainment the impressionist Rich Little, who calls himself "basically a Republican," and whose jokes are reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's, though without the edge.
New Yorker | January 20, 2007 04:16 PM