All right- I won't be as funny as that last bit just so you know.
Well good evening Mr. President, Mrs. First Lady, and the distinguished members of the radio and television Correspondents Dinner.
You know, when I accepted the honor of performing here tonight one thought crossed my mind and that was please God don't let me bomb in front of the President.
But I'm not worried, what the hell do I care? I got- I worked on all my jokes, I got a lot of help from my joke writer Don Imus, he helped me a lot- are you familiar? You know this guy's a funny guy, he wrote some jokes.
Anyways, the dinner was great- enjoy the dinner? We had some salmon, it was delicious, it was great and I thought it was refreshing to see Democrats serve something other than the subpoenas for a change- I thought that was nice, you know? I'll be doing some jokes later I just thought...
But you know, it is rather daunting to me, I'm just a guy you know, who the hell am I? And here I am I look, I see President Bill Clinton, I see Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, broadcast legend Larry King, p**nographer Larry Flynt, Dick Morris... the list is starting to drop off a little folks but still you get the idea- it's daunting.
And of course it was very inspiring to see President Clinton up here on crutches making a speech. I thought that was just amazing, I mean it's been difficult for the president, he can't jog now and he needs help getting around and he still occasionally suffers great pain On the upside you got your medical marijuana so that's… You must inhale, Sir, it's the only way you're going to get better!
But it's odd- I think this is the first time that I can remember that we had a president that is hobbled and it's tough on everybody, the Secret Service- it's not easy on the Secret Service, they've had to learn how to do this and they've been specially trained on how to lift and carry President Clinton by top experts who've been doing this for a long time: Boris Yeltsin's Secret Service agents. They've they stepped in to help.
Anyways- excuse me I'm sorry folks, Larry Flynt and Dick Morris are giving some sort of hand signals to each other over there I can't- I don't know what the hell that's all about but it's kinda hard to concentrate. Larry Flynt is here tonight. But also present this evening, Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State- Ms. Albright's been very busy, you know, she just returned from Russia where she- you gonna applaud for her? Yeah, Madeline Albright! She's been very busy- she just went to Russia where she met with Boris Yeltsin, and they they had some talk on native expansion, and I guess they kinda had a tense meeting, you know, and Miss Albright came back out, she said “For this I traveled 5,000 miles to meet with some drunken meshugenah? On my worst enemy I wouldn't wish this” She's changed you know? That's what I find.
But of course looking around the room I also see many distinguished members of the Fourth Estate- I see Bryant Gumbel is here and he just signed a multi-year contract of course with CBS and he took some time off to be with his family after the Today Show. But Bryant in his heart is a newsman, and and after a few weeks he realized that he missed the excitement and thrill that you can only get by making millions and millions of dollars so…
And Dan Rather, of course, is here- he's a broadcast legend, I love Dan Rather- I talked to him backstage and it was a real thrill for me, and he was so excited to be here. I was backstage and I've never seen him so excited- at one time, at one moment, I remember, he broke into a huge frozen smile- there it is again, there it is, take a look, that's the huge frozen smile I'm talking about.
We got a lot of power here, a lot of juice,- Mr. Roone Arledge here, of course the Chairman of ABC News, and a lot of crazy stories coming out of that division- stories about this person sleeping with that person and all that, scandal after scandal- have you heard the latest? I heard this just the other day- there's a rumor that last week a certain, I don't want to say who it is, a certain gentleman at ABC News, he went to a party and he got really drunk and he ended up having s** with his own wife. I don't know how these rumors get started but it's probably just a vicious rumor really...
But as Mr. Alredge knows, of course, TV has become a very tough game- you gotta stay competitive. As we all know, ABC's Good Morning America in a little turmoil, a little rating trouble, and they're considering a lot of ways now, to boost the ratings and, I don't know, I think they're getting a little desperate. I heard that next week Charles Gibson will announce he's a lesbian... I mean is that that gonna help anything? Nobody wants to hear that.
Martha Stewart is here and she wanted me to tell you, don't let the busboys clear your table after tonight because a little later Martha'll come up here and she's gonna show us how to take those old discarded fish bones and make a beautiful bird house so.. that's nice.
I'm very nervous, I don't know why. Before I sip this coffee, actually sir, how much is it? How much would a cup of coffee cost in a place like this. Nothing, it's free? Okay great- I didn't want to get, you know, I didn't want to see any ninety thousand dollars on my bill.
And of course there is important Washington figures who couldn't be here tonight- Vice President Al Gore is not here unfortunately; he broke down and they had to leave him in the shop overnight but they say he'll be alright later- something wrong with the voice box, I don't know what it was.
House speaker Newt Gingrich's not here and a little out back, of course everybody knows, that Newt pushed through a lot of budget cuts in the arts, particularly PBS, and the effects are being felt now- I can see it even as a layman just watching. The other day I watched that show ‘The Frugal Gourmet'- it changed its name to ‘The Cheap ba*tard'- I mean it's crazy!
And Senator Ted Kennedy couldn't be here- there's a lot of jokes about Ted Kennedy but I recently watched an interview- it was very touching, and Ted was talking about- Mr. Kennedy, what the hell am I calling him Ted for? Senator Kennedy was talking about how he proposed to his lovely wife Vicki Reggie and it was it's very touching, it was a different side of Ted Kennedy you don't see- he was very old fashioned and romantic when he made the proposal- it was very nice- he got up on one knee... it was nice, you know you hear all the stories but…
You know I'm starting to relax now? I think I'm relaxing a little and that's not just the booze talking- I think I really am relaxing. It's the Xanax, the Prozac, and the booze talking.
But I'm a little nervous you know I mean, who the hell am? But it's been great to be in Washington, I can tell you that man, oh my god, I had a lovely stay here, private sightseeing. and in fact, I stopped at a museum- this is probably interesting to you guys- they have this news museum now, have you seen this? It's a museum that's dedicated to broadcast journalism and they have all sorts of tributes to Edward R Murrow and such, and they have this one fascinating place, it's a kind of an interactive display and visitors, what they can do is, they can appear on camera and pretend that they are real journalists. So far it's been visited 20 times by Matt Lauer... but I guess he's a legend, I didn't know- Murrow, Severide, Edwards, and Lauer... alright.
And today I took a visit to the White House- for any of you who haven't taken a visit to the White House- unbelievable! so awe-inspiring and very rich in history, so beautiful- although I did notice an odd sign on the President's desk, it said “The Yen stops here”. What the hell does that mean? The Yen? The buck stops here is what I always heard.
Of course they say the White House was haunted- did you know that? And I thought this was kind of sad- I heard last night that President Clinton charged Abraham Lincoln's ghost $10,000 to sleep in his own bed. That doesn't seem right to me.
But look, the president has come under a lot of fire for raising money but he's good at it- he's good at raising money. That's not a bad thing- every president's done it- it's just that President Clinton is very, very, very good at it. Did you know he has organized in the past year over 100 fundraising dinners and over 200 fundraising midnight snacks- did you know that? Is he laughing?
Mr. President, seriously I know you've had to work through a lot of distractions and doing the business of running this country, and I just want to say I implore you: stay focused and do the job and try to remember that Rome was not built in a day. Just ask Strom Thurmond- he'll tell you- he's an old fella. How would you not know that?
Oh, I have an announcement to read. I almost forgot, I was told to make this announcement: Table 10, wherever you are, table 10- we're sorry your waitress hasn't been there in a while, Larry King just married her.
I have to say that this is an incredible thing for me- I'm just a punk, and yet here I am. I can't believe I'm speaking in a room, I'm standing in a room here with the most powerful man in the country, Alan Greenspan, and it's a little amazing to me. And that's a big story in here, in Washington, is the recent marriage between NBC's Andrea Mitchell and Alan Greenspan, who is 71 years old and, this is sweet, I didn't know this- they wrote their own vows. She promised to love honor and speak into his good ear. It's kind of sweet.
The newlyweds are going to spend their honeymoon in Mexico and I thought this was sweet- as a gift to his new bride, Alan Greenspan just devalued the peso.
You know what just occurred to me, Mr. President, you are now handicapped and you're the President of the United States- you must have an unbelievable parking spot. That's gotta be very close to the building.
You gotta hand it to the president, his injury is not holding him back from doing the business of the nation. In fact, he just nominated major-general Claudia Kennedy as the Army's first female three-star general. I think that's great, she's doing a great job. Apparently the only thing she's having trouble with is, she's having difficulty figuring out how to s**ually hara** herself.
What's that? Guy yells my name for no reason.
I have another announcement to make- is that what you're telling me? That I should make this announcement? You're right. You make a good point with your incoherent gibberish.
Here it is, here's my other announcement- the US State Department, folks, has just issued a travel warning for all women moving past Dick Morris's table right.
Well that's about it for me- how about this Heaven's Gate cult? This is what everybody's talking about, it's unbelievable, and it really is a sad story and it's hard to comprehend. I mean, think about it- who in their right mind would believe that you could get into a spaceship behind a comet by castrating yourself and committing suicide? I mean, other than Pierre Salinger, who on earth would believe that? I just saw him out in the lobby with a pair of sneakers- Nike sneakers with a big purple shroud going ‘Where are they? Did I miss it?'.
Well that's it for me folks- I just want to say before I go that it has been a real thrill for me to joke around about the news, but you people, you do the real thing, and you serve as our watchdog, you tell the real stories that come out of this city, and I, for one, think you do a darn good job and as a matter of fact, I have a message from someone who couldn't be here, he wanted me to read it to you- this is from Senator Bob Dole, he wanted me to read this to you, here it is, this from Senator Bob Dole:
‘Ladies and gentlemen of the press, the hell with you all. You cost me the damn election! You can kiss my a**, every last one here.'
Thank you folks, thank you very much.