[Master Belisarius]

Originally posted by geoschmo:
Unfortunatly Master B it's true. It was in very poor taste, and it will very likely hurt him politically. There will be those that attempt to defend the comments as being in the tradition of these press dinners. They will mention that previous presidents have made similerly outrageous jokes. They will point to among other things former President Clintons press dinner comments during the Monica Lewinsky debacle.

IMHO they will be wrong to attempt to do so because there is a major difference.

Clinton could make fun of his sexual dalliances and everyone could laugh. This was because for those that opposed him it at worst it reaffirmed their own already negative image of him, and at best could have cast him in a better light as someone that could make fun of himself. And those that suppoorted him felt the whole situation was stupid anyway and needed to be ridiculed.

On the other hand Bush making fun of not finding WMD's is a lose-lose. Those that oppose him are not going to be impressed by his akward attempt at self-depreciating humor. They will say the issue is too serious to joke about, and they will be right. On the other hand those that support the President will be unable to honestly defend these comments because they don't consider the situation to be one that is appropriate to ridicule.

Thanks for your answer Geo. And by the way, I agree with your view.