Correspondents Dinner Speech

And thusly, I end my prolonged absence from the internet political community. I know updates have been sparse, and it has been a stressful spring, but now it’s back to business. New Congressional Power Rankings tomorrow. But for now, how about that Correspondents Dinner speech by the President?



“For the last time, the Republican Party does not qualify for a bailout. Rush Limbaugh does not count as a troubled asset.” Nice.

I loved the teleprompter joke at the beginning. Not a lot of people realize that the President does use a teleprompter at basically every event. It’s one of the reasons he speaks so well when he speaks, he doesn’t need to constantly look down to see where he is on the page or what his next line is. Previous Presidents have either leaned too heavily on the teleprompter so that they actually seemed disengaged from the audience he is speaking to, (George W. Bush) or have refused to use the thing at all, but the President has mastered the use of the machine so that he looks like he really is “speaking off the cuff” even at major speeches like his inaugural. The President has been known to drop a few funny one liners before minor speeches and events. But the only other truly satirical speech he has ever given was at the Al Smith dinner last fall during the campaign:



Correspondents Dinners have a history for funny speeches by the press as well, but I couldn’t get through a post on the Correspondents Dinner without mentioning the man himself, Stephen Colbert roasting W in 2006.