Laura Steals the Show!

The White House Correspondents Association dinner is tonight in Washington, and I've been watching on C-SPAN for a bit. Normally the president makes some brief comments (and they're typically the usual Bush jokes), but tonight, right in the middle of his "cattle guard" spiel (if you don't know, don't ask), Laura stepped up to the podium and interrupted him. I think most people thought it was just a momentary thing (she said "George please, not that old joke again"), but she ended up taking over and he went back to his seat.

And I have to say, she was pretty darn funny. She poked a good bit of fun at her husband from the outset, noting "He'd normally be in bed by now. I'm not kidding." A typical 9 p.m. for her, she said, was "George is in bed, and I'm watching 'Desperate Housewives.'" She continued by saying "I am a Desperate Housewife," and recounted a trip to Chippendales with Lynne Cheney and Karen Hughes with the result that "Lynne's Secret Service code name is now 'Dollar Bill.'" Sleeping habits aren't the only thing that separates her and George, the First Lady said: "I can pronounce nuclear."

The Bush clan wasn't spared. Of Kennebunkport vacations with the president's family, Laura said, "Let me put it this way. First prize, a three-day vacation with the Bush family. Second prize, ten days." The president's mother is no "Aunt Bea" type ... "more like Don Corleone," said her daughter-in-law.

And the ranch? At first George wasn't good at the whole ranching thing, quipped the First Lady: "You see, Yale and Andover don't have a real strong ranching program." "Things have improved since the first year though," she said. "That was when George tried to milk the horse. ... Even worse, it was a male horse." The president's "answer for any problem on the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw," Laura remarked. "I think that's why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well."

Maybe she should be in charge of Social Security reform ...

[Update: The Associated Press has stolen my headline. Oh well, I suppose it was sort of an obvious one. -- 10:53 p.m.]

[Further Update: Trey Jackson has posted a video of the First Lady's comments here. -- 5/1/05, 10:24 a.m.]