Laura Bush's Potty Mouth
You might have heard about the recent White House Correspondent's Dinner where Mrs. Bush made a bit of a splash. The short version is this is one of those events where the President is supposed to be a comedian; tell jokes, make fun, and generally act collegial with the White House press corps.
This year, as Mr. Bush was just warming up, Mrs. Bush brushed him aside and did a few minutes worth of stand up. There were lurid suggestions of trips to Chippendales. There were crass suggestions that Mr. Bush was a fuddy-duddy that left his housewife desperate by going to bed at 9 PM. There was talk of Mr. Bush's adventures in farming and ranching that included the suggestion that he had accidentally "serviced" a stallion instead of milking a cow as well as the potential his propensity to solve problems at the ranch with a chain saw probably explained his foreign policies in the Middle East.
In short, she was a hoot. I laughed myself silly. And while that isn't normally a very long trip to make, Mrs. Bush's routine made it thoroughly enjoyable.
And then they started in. Suggesting that it was unseemly for a woman in position to say such things. Why for a librarian of all people, not to mention that her husband is the leader of the free world, to say things like that. It's just unheard of.
Feh.
Curiously enough, there comes this response from John Tierney of the New York Times entitled "Laura Bush Talks Naughty".
A couple of the juicier lines:
Her timing had the audience howling, and the edgier lines had them gasping. Jokes about pent-up sexual frustration from a prim librarian? With her born-again husband sitting there and enjoying it? And cameras recording it for Republican preachers who are determined to get sex out of schools and off television?
For the mainly Democratic audience - this was a crowd of Washington journalists and luminaries from Hollywood and Manhattan - it was an evening of cognitive dissonance. How to reconcile this charming image on stage with the Bush they love to bash?
[--get that? A crowd of Washington journalists and Hollywood folks is bound to be mostly Democratic. But there is no leftward media bias, right?-D]
Mrs. Bush's performance, and her husband's reaction, wasn't a shock to the reporters who cover the White House. For years they have tried to convince their friends outside Washington that Mr. Bush is actually not a close-minded dolt, and Mrs. Bush is no Stepford Wife or Church Lady. Yes, they're Texans who go to church and preach family values, but they're not yahoos or religious zealots.
The coverage of Mrs. Bush's comic debut may change some minds, but for devout Bush-bashers, it's much easier to stay the course. If you live in a blue-state stronghold, a coastal city where you can go 24 hours without meeting any Republicans, it's consoling to think of the red staters as an alien bunch of strait-laced Bible thumpers.
Otherwise, how do you explain why they're Republican? Or answer the question Democrats asked in astonishment when they saw Mr. Bush's vote totals: Who are these people?
...................
But middle-class Americans don't simply cast ballots for Republicans. They also vote with their feet, which is why blue states and old Democratic cities are losing population to red states and Republican exurbs. People are moving there precisely because of economic reasons - more jobs, affordable houses and the lower taxes offered by Republican politicians.
They're not moving for the churches, and they don't vote for Mr. Bush simply because he reads the Bible every day. One of the main reasons they like him is that he gets bashed so often. When Jon Stewart sneers at him, they empathize because they're used to being sneered at themselves.
They know what their image is in Manhattan and Hollywood, and they know they're not all that different from the Democrats in those places. They, too, watch "Desperate Housewives," and they're not surprised to hear Laura Bush doing Chippendales jokes. They've spent their own dollar bills there. They don't see anything the matter with that - or with themselves.
The "Move-On" crowd could learn a thing or two from this whole episode. So could the Jerry Falwell's of the world.
by Dann
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