Wanda Sykes may be known to most of America as Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ pal on The New Adventures of Old Christine, but at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, she re-established herself as a mow-’em-down stand-up comic. This was the annual evening of joking in front of an audience of media types that range from print reporters to celebs (ooh, there’s Kate Walsh! Mariska Hargitay! OMG: Sting!). In the recent past, Stephen Colbert performed an artful evisceration of President Bush using his Colbert Report persona.
Sykes dropped her sitcom impishness and was all-Wanda, all the time. In the line that drew gasps from the posh crowd, she attacked Rush Limbaugh for saying he hoped the President’s policies would fail. “That’s treason,” she said. “That’s not saying anything different from what Osama bin Laden is saying… I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.” Yow. “Too much?” she asked rhetorically.
Sykes lauded Obama as “the first black President–unless you screw up. Then it’s ‘What’s up with the half-white guy?’ ‘Who voted for the mulatto?’” Saying he was “so accessible, rappers give you their demos,” Sykes established a thoroughly irreverent tone. Warming up, Sykes ragged on Vice President Joe Biden’s chattiness by suggesting he’d give away state secrets if captured by terrorists.
But Sykes reserved her most jagged-edged material for nattering nabobs of negativity such as Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. Referring to Hannity’s offer to be waterboarded, she scoffed, “I can break Sean Hannity just by giving him a middle seat in coach.”
Wanda Sykes had a strong opening act: President Obama killed, as comedians like to say, in his own lead-in routine. He said Dick Cheney was busy working on his memoirs, “tentatively titled How To Shoot Friends And Interrogate People.” He made a series of “In the next hundred days… ” jokes the way David Letterman rattles off “It was so hot out today… ” yuks. “In the next hundred days,” Obama said, “I will strongly consider losing my cool.” Indeed, the President exuded a Johnny Carson-like aplomb in delivering his lines, chuckling at some of the punchlines as though he appreciated how well his joke-writers’ material was going over.
Afterward, over on MSNBC (which aired the event along with C-SPAN), there was some post-dinner analysis among fuddy-duddies including Pat Buchanan. The panelists said the President and Sykes’ jokes were “very, very crude on the Republicans.” Tidy up that grammar and the point was accurate. Is this the way the dinner’s humor is going to play out in the media in the days ahead? If so, good. Sykes was both brutal, and brutally funny.
Did you watch? What did you think?
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CSPAN had the best coverage. The President was funny and Wanda was sharp. i just wish she’d been on for longer and had realllly gone after Limbaugh and Hannity just a little more. also, i want Colbert to do one of these dinners again, during the Obama admin.
Colbert doing the dinner in his persona now would be pretty awesome. Obama was pretty hilarious tonight though.
Encourage Hannity to live up to his pledge:
http://www.WaterboardHannityForCharity.com
That was good, but nothing will ever beat Colbert’s time there.
By the way Ken, I expect your “Mother Lover” report soon! lol (SNL)
http://tvdonewright.com/2009/05/10/tv-tonight-sunday-may-10th-2009/
I’m sure that right-wingers howling about what Wanda Sykes had to say about Rush Limbaugh will conveniently forget about his mocking Michael J. Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease. She just gave him back what he dishes out. Oh, and both she and Obama were hilarious.
How to make Wanda Sykes break: give her a mirror.
Limbaugh deserved every word of it. I bet Wanda wont be apologizing.
OMG…Soooo funny! Wanda always makes me laugh and the Prez was awesome too. Rush and hannity and all the Right wingers who will crying and whining like the babies they are…..Get used to it…you deserve it all and more and welcome to being in the wilderness where you belong.
You conveniently left off Obama’s joke about grounding his daughters over a joy ride to Manhattan on Air Force One. Once again he shows his lack of compassion.
Wanda reflects your President’s view of all white people very well. Enjoy it while you can till the next election.
to Andrea D on your comment “Once again he shows his lack of compassion.” Please get over it. He won the election and he is the president and it was a hell of a Joke as for Rush he got what he deserves…
To MT, too. Get over it, L
We will get over it in 2010.
I wonder if Sykes ever heard of Karma — what happens to people who wish such serious ailments on others.
Sykes has no redeeming value. Love Limbaugh or hate him, her remark was beyond the pale. And her attempt at humor regarding teenager Bristol Palin, whose father was in the sudience, was just nasty.
You Rush defenders are hilarious. Here’s a guy who’s made fun of Robert Reich for his height (due to a childhood disease), mocked Michael J. Fox for having a disease, and long pandered to the prejudices of listeners. Someone returns fire and guess what? The “tough guys” on the right can’t take it.
The “woman” was not funny. She completely misrepresented what Limbaugh said. She is a waste of a human being – her oxygen should be cut off.
As far as “get over it” – that doesn’t fly. You hateful liberals never let up on Bush. Why should we let up on Obama? He is FAR worse than Bush. This idiot complained of Bush wasting a “budget surplus” (a lie) during his campaign; yet he is sending this country into the biggest debt in the history of mankind. Obama is trying to destroy this country and the Constitution with it.
Sykes is a tasteless, talentless despicable human being…she takes her rightful place behind the members of the main stream press. Birds of a feather…
Sykes was awesome and dead on. She said what 75% of America believes about the GOP. Limbaugh and the GOP are enemies of America. Thank you Wanda! Just brilliant.
“Hateful liberals?” HAHAHA! Let me think…pot? kettle? No, wait, I’ve got it: “lickspittle conservatives.” Sykes just gave you some of your own back.
Pathetic. Classless and dishonest as usual. Limbaugh will laugh this off as irrelevant. He knows how mean-spirited Obama and his apparatchik are and he’s prepared for all their ridicule. Obama, one the other hand, is fixated w/Limbaugh because Obama is a weak narcissist, and his followers are stupid suck-ups.
She could have been just as funny and not compared Limbaugh to one of the people that flew airplanes into people’s offices.
Was Wanda Sykes funny? It all sounds like old material to me. Hope she don’t take that stuff on the road & try to make a living with it.
President Obama read some jokes too I see. He reminded the press they all voted for him so they dutifully laughed on cue. The president should stick to his day job. Now that’s where all the comedy gold comes from. Joe Biden & the president of these 57 states. That’s the comedy gift that keeps on giving… only if they didn’t cost us so much money.
You wankers who think this was all so horrible would be saying just the opposite if the roles were reversed. There is nothing worse than a bunch self-righteous hypocrites.
Politics has become just another entertainment blood sport. Nothing but fighting and negativity. We don’t get news here. We get the American version of bullfights. I’ve left both CNN & Fox for BBC America.
Someone posted that they wondered if Sykes knew about Karma. Well, perhaps Karma was wielded by Sykes to those who deserved it. The Republicans can throw it but can’t take it. That makes everything funnier because it’s true. HAHA!
The president was brilliant. I believe every line was appropriate and well spoken. Sikes was horendous. Maybe two good lines. The irony is, I usually appreciate her comedy. I didn’t vote for Obama, but I must say that he’s a very talented speaker…an entertainer even.
I’m a republican, but I thought Sykes was hilarious. Limbaugh only has fans among the extreme right of the party. Most of us think he’s a dbag who can dish it out but whines when it comes back to him. YOu can have conservative views without spewing his kind of hate.
As far as the dinner goes, this is an annual gloves-off event where both sides are tough on the other (although the side “in charge” clearly is at an advantage given they have the bully pulpit). It is intended to be mean and “roast-like” and isn’t intended to be seen as “Truth” by its listeners, unlike Rush, Hannity, Matthews, Olbermann and all the other haters across the political spectrum. This is comedy, not hateful commentary that the above espouse.
People need to lighten up and grow a sense of humor. All these extremists on both sides who laugh at Limbaugh’s or Olbermann’s tasteless and untrue ranting can’t take a few jabs from the Oval Office?
Wanda is a black tramp.
I thought they were both funny. Obama’s comment about about Republican John Boehner’s being a person of color was hilarious. Boehner is ORANGE from excessive tanning. Sykes comment about someone telling Palin that pulling out at the last minute is not how you practice abstinence was also really funny.
For those of you who were “offended,” why weren’t/aren’t you offended by the torture, corruption and incredible stupidity of the Bush/Cheney years? Or Fox News and their ridiculous criticism of Obama wanting dijon mustard on his hamburger instead of ketchup?