Comedy @white house

On my routine visit to slashdot I came across this today. At the annual white house correspondence dinner, Stephen Colbert roasted the president.

Here is the video and here. Here is the transcript. It is hilarious! Must see/read.

I am sure this routine would have been approved by president's staff and I was pleasantly surprised with what made the final show. The NSA wiretapping, Fox News, Dick Cheney shooting and most of all, the president's gut feel - nothing was spared.

Also check out Dubya and his alter ego at the same function here. Must hand this one to Georgie boy - fun it was.

Reading more about it, I came to know a comedy routine is a regular fixture at this event. Here is George Dubya taking a dig at Bush-isms at the 2001 annual dinner. Here is the first lady at the 2005 dinner talking about how she happened to marry the president in spite of being the kind of girl who spent 12 hours a day in the library.

Apparently JFK and Clinton used to do pretty funny routines themselves at these dinners (haven't found much of that so far).

I was thinking if Indian politicians (and public!) will digest the leaders doing such routines on national tv. I am not sure. Leaders back home are more reverand, and I believe will not make fun of themselves (not intentionally, I mean :D). It is left to the jesters. Shekhar Suman is the only one that comes to mind (he started out good, but grew way sad in a couple of years, IMO). I'd be surprised to see him do his Atal Behari routine standing 10 feet from Atal.

Not in Amrika apparently..Another one of those idiosyncracies that make you wonder about another dimension where we are different cultarally.

Disclaimers:
1. Not judging any culture here. Just observing the difference.
2. Please correct me if things are different - have been out of touch with desi tv for about 4 years now.