Sunday, May 10, 2009

Stand Up in Chief.







I always found Bush's performances at these things rather painful and was not surprised to hear that he did not enjoy attending them.

Obama on the other hand handled this very competently, claiming that this was the tenth day celebrating his first hundred days in office and that he is so competent that he would complete his next hundred days in 72 days and that on the 73rd day he would rest.

I enjoyed him telling Michael Steele that the Republican party did not qualify for a bailout and that Rush Limbaugh did not count as "a troubled asset". At times he made me gasp, such as when he told us the title of Dick Cheney's autobiography would be, "How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People."

At times you also hoped that he had vetted the jokes with his colleagues. For example, his joke about the transformation from rival to friend between himself and Hillary Clinton, which he knew by the way she greeted him "when she returned from Mexico" and gave him a big hug and a kiss, and told him he better get down there himself.

My favourite line was when he said that he hoped John Boehner would consider becoming a Democrat as they had a lot in common, "after all he is a person of colour, even if it isn't a colour that appears in the natural world".

It was a very polished performance and a very funny one.

No comments: