Comedian and Future Senator Al Franken With a Hilarious Performance at the 1996 WHCP

thank you thank you very much I was sitting on the dais and Secret Service man walked up with this note from the hay-adams it says al don't be nervous there's nobody important here dick cavett so dick Cavett's here so someone let me get this thing out anyway it's a tremendous honor to be short by the way I thought the president was very funny in you I mean you're no Dick Lugar but now the the last time I was in this room actually is an honor to be asked back again but the last time I was in this room actually was a little over a month ago for the radio and TV Correspondents Dinner and actually during the evening I came up with the title to my next book Don Imus is a big putz okay quick my impression of Don Imus at the 1944 radio Correspondents Dinner Don Imus of the 1944 correspondents radio Correspondents Dinner for those of you listening on radio the president is a [ __ ] you know I guess I guess what Armas was trying to do is sort of demonstrate his shock jock bonafide ease by showing that he's willing to walk you know speak in front of 3,000 people and offend you know pretty much everyone that is not my goal tonight let me let you in on my god if at the end of this evening the Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich walks out of this hotel thinking you know that Al Franken is a pretty funny guy then I know I will failed miserably and let a lot of people down if on the other hand the president leaves thinking hmm you know how would make a pretty good council general to Bermuda mission accomplished but the Correspondents Association was afraid of a repeat of the whole Imus debacle so the Board of Governors had a meeting and drew up some ground rules for tonight's talk for example there are a number of subjects I've been instructed to avoid whitewater specifically web hubbell susan thomases either of the MacDougall's i am not to do jokes about any aspect of the president's personal life except his eating habits [Laughter] evidently sir you you eat a meat a lot and the the Correspondents Association seems to think that we could have quite a bit of harmless fun with that other other subjects to avoid newt gingrich's first wife Bob Dole's first wife Phil Gramm's first wife dick Armey's first wife Rush Limbaugh's first wife well rush limbaugh a second wife Rush Limbaugh's third wife now here's a real odd one and it's really kind of I don't know I can do jokes about abortion but only first trimester abortions on okay now this one's almost insulting I must remain fully clothed for example I cannot moon the first lady Carl what do you think I am a shock jock so Carl you can rest assured that I'm not gonna do any jokes tonight that could make the President or the first lady even remotely uncomfortable and if you believe that I've got some land and Arkansas I'd like to sell you but I can sympathize somewhat with Aramis because when you do a speech like this it's really you know you have to risk offending someone when I did this dinner two years ago I did a joke that actually still quite timely the joke was this having al d'amato lead an ethics investigation is a little like having Bob Dornan head up a mental health task force you know not a bad joke [Applause] so this and this is a true story three days later as in Hollywood O's in someone's office and this person's assistant walks in and says al congressman Bob Dornan is on the phone for you oh okay Gold congressman now you'd give me an ad y House Correspondents Dinner so well congressman III I told a joke what was the joke okay the joke was having al d'amato lead an ethics investigation is a little like having Bob Dornan head up a mental health task force and there was a pause and then uh hell that's okay so now I like Bob Dornan he's a crazy homophobe but he can take a joke [Laughter] [Applause] now speaking Maldonado motto I'm pretty well-known for my al d'amato impression you want to hear it we are simply attempting to ascertain the veracity of the first lady visa vide in regards how the discrepancies and inconsistencies which I am told mean the same thing insofar as they relate to the documentation contained in the documents and the information there in visa vie and and regard to does anyone remember how I started this sentence Thank You al d'amato [Applause] let's keep going let's keep going this year actually has been a very exciting one for me because for a ylist winner I was actually a member of the press corps I briefly covered the campaign for Newsweek I remember one night in Manchester New Hampshire I attended a a dull event it was a VFW spaghetti dinner and it was a very special night for senator Dole because there were actually a few people there who were older than him now it turned out to be a real morale booster so the next day I went to the Milford Rotary Club to see Steve Forbes who's here tonight out there by the way by the way mr. Forbes my book did so well that I'm now for the flat tax now I really believe having my royalties taxes 17 instead of 39.6% well unleash my creative energies [Applause] anyway it was this cold day in Milford and there were about a hundred of us out there and the press core freezing locked out of the Rotary Club because according to the Forbes press guy we had scared the wrote arrogance so we're standing out there for two hours in this dis Dutch crew decides to interview me this is how little was happening so stuck correspondent says to me which of the Republicans do you like the most I said well I guess of the Republicans I like Bob Dole lamaze oh but he is so old I said well you know he wasn't too old to save your sorry Dutch ass I said I said now how long exactly did it take the Nazis to roll over Holland was it like an hour now by this point in the campaign Phil Graham had dropped out which to be honest I sort of seen coming the first time the first time I saw him speak on the stump he said I flung the 3rd 7th and 9th Gries gee what a surprise [Applause] now I followed Buchanan around for a few days in South Carolina and I had met Buchanan 88 at the Atlanta convention when I came back to New York I told my friends in New York you know Pat Buchanan is charming he's very charming guy and and more than one of my friends said oh yeah well gurbles was charming which is just so unfair because gurbles wasn't charming now herbals was an ill-tempered back biter anyway my my Newsweek assignment was to get an interview with Buchanan which I didn't get but I came up with some questions and I don't want to waste them so here they are mr. Buchanan you've said that a million immigrant Englishmen would assimilate to life in America better than a million Zulus who do you think would do better a million Zulus for a million pygmies you have said that holic you have said that Holocaust survivors had quote group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics is the same true of your followers have you ever had a homoerotic dream get some water now Lamar Alexander is here tonight over there and I think we all remember I think we all remember Lamar's ABCs Alexander beats Clinton or as I like to call it a bad campaign of course we all know the Alexander campaign would have gone nowhere without the support of Bill Bennett now I haven't actually read the book of virtues but I have seen Bennett on TV quite a bit and evidently smugness is one of the basic virtues [Applause] and no one knows that now better than Bob Dole I don't need to tell you in the media that things are not going well for for him Dole is now behind the president in every demographic group except one apparently he still enjoys a slight lead among agribusiness executives for now the dole campaign is kind of dead in the water and the feeling is that the only thing that can really revive it is as if : pal agrees to be on the ticket you know the whole : powell phenomenon sort of led me to one inescapable conclusion which is the first jew to be elected president of the united states will have to be a four-star general that gave me the idea of looking for a jew in the military that we could start gloomy for a run at the White House and so I did some research now unfortunately it turns out that the highest-ranking Jew in the Armed Forces right now is comptroller of the Coast Guard [Applause] now I think New Jersey Governor Christy Whitman would be a good choice for Dole she's very popular and I have a theory on this that I've never heard anyone else articulate Americans love royalty and no one represents royalty to Americans more than even though they're getting divorced Princess Di and Prince Charles Christie Whitman is a dead cross between Princess Di and Prince Charles [Applause] I've been told that the dole campaign has eliminated John Engler from consideration apparently he's two pounds overweight now the Clinton dole campaigns our camps have yet to agree on how the debates will work the Clinton campaign would like a series of eight debates on subjects ranging from economic insecurity to the environment the dole campaign wants one debate on the subject my war record of course the campaign has now moved back to the capital here and the big battle for most of this past year has been the budget and last week the president finally signed a budget for fiscal 96 and that's good but there's still a lot of work to do toward balancing the budget over the next seven years now how can we cut all these programs retain civilization as we know it and become a better and more compassionate country well I've looked at the budget and it can be done but we need creative thinking to make it work in the spirit of Gingrich and Kasich I have an idea now every proposal for balancing the budget includes cuts for both Medicare and NASA now here are two seemingly unrelated facts that 130 percent of Medicare expenditures are incurred by people in the last year of their lives in fact two NASA spends billions a year on astronaut safety maybe maybe you see where I'm going why not shoot the elderly into space stay with me because I'm not just talking about the budget here I'm talking about science just think how many more man Space Operations NASA could undertake if they didn't have to worry about getting the astronauts back now I'm not saying we don't try to get them back we just don't make such a big deal you know that way we don't have to use the shuttle every time which is very expensive put an old mercury you know on top of an old Saturn rocket fired up see what happens and if the Houston we've got a problem call comes Mission Control can simply reply best of luck we're rooting for you we can learn so much what is the effect of weightlessness on arthritis let's make it our goal to perform the first hip replacement in space before the Millenium with aluminum foil make a good spacesuit for a spacewalk or would you just bake like a potato that would be fun to know this whole thing to be a tremendous boon to what is called raw science for example how close to the Sun can a person get before he bursts into flame then would it make any difference if he's fat now here's another idea I'm not a military expert so I'm not sure that this is feasible but here it is from what I've read I understand there is nothing more terrifying in battle and seeing enemy hordes charging at you with no regard for their own lives why have we always insisted on asking our our young man in our young women and the flower of their lives to risk themselves in combat why not in the right situation use a human wave of our elderly to scare the enemy now think about it your inner rocky or a North Korean soldier suddenly over the horizon you see a battalion of Americans they won't attack you think America wouldn't risk the blood of its precious youth when it could simply employ is sophisticated expensive weapons then you look through your binoculars but a chill goes down your spine retirees thousands and thousands of them each one older than the next each with a life expectancy of 3 or 4 years at most you think to yourself what do these people really have to lose the worst four years of their lives you're terrified then they charge a slow charge yes but that makes it even more frightening I admittedly there's some kinks to work out mobilization would be tough I don't know if if you've ever organized a group of seniors for a theater trip I don't think training be that hard Beach is sort of like you know go out there and run and this would give our World War 2 era Americans a chance to contribute yet again to our country just when they thought they were forgotten I guess what I'm saying is let's not just talk about our problems let's talk about solutions [Music] I'll tell you though I really like being here in this town and if I were in wash if I were a single guy I would move to Washington because there's so many really intelligent attractive unattached women here in Washington Yard Enid waldholtz for example although I hear it might be a little late I understand she's found a new new guy and that she plans to build a whole new life around Aldrich Ames Walter change he was the spy now ordinarily I'm not one to engage in self-promotion but this is c-span and there are literally hundreds of people watching so I'd like to take a mint moment to mention my book rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot and other observations you know the first time I heard rush on the radio he was spewing about the feminazis and their women as victim ideas he was railing about how feminists believe that all heterosexual sex is rape which I'm is very hard view to defend the thing is though I I know a lot of women almost all whom consider themselves feminists and only one holds this view and we've been married nearly twenty years sorry honey now rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot is in reality a very high-minded satire on the breakdown of civility in our public discourse the breakdown has been a tremendously corrosive effect on society in general case in point on items and that's why tonight I'd like to do my part and move the national dialogue forward and in all modesty I really hope that historians will look back on this speech as a watershed event that ushers in a new age of civility which will begin immediately after I tell the following jokes about the speaker now I did read newts book to renew America and there are an awful lot of futuristic third wave ideas the diagnostic health chair honeymoons in space you know a lot of us smoke dope and read Toffler in the 70s I think news little secret is that he smoked dope and watched The Jetsons [Applause] but the speaker is nothing if not a man of ideas some of which have been very controversial for example his gender theories you remember that Newt said quote said and I quote if combat means living in a ditch females have biological problems staying in a ditch for 30 days because they get infections now I read this and the image that immediately came to mind was that of Newt about 15 years ago explaining to his 13 year old daughter that she had just gotten her first infection but the good news is that there are more ideas like that to come because even though his poll numbers are at an historic low the speaker is writing another book once again he's taking a $1 advance not voluntarily that's the most he could get one of the great things about speaking here is that you get to invite a whole table of friends and it's great because my table is table 42 and the speaker's is 41 so my guests get to sit near the speaker and they're all very excited I just want if I'd take a moment to introduce seated at my table our former Speaker of the House gym right now Fort Worth Texas Gail Sheehy of Vanity Fair magazine Candice Gingrich of Harrisburg Pennsylvania and her friend Martina Navratilova Aspen Colorado Christina Geoffrey of Kennesaw Georgia Christina I know was a hardship coming all the way up here to Washington only just you know you have to turn back tomorrow go back but if you have the time before you leave I'd really recommend check checking out the Holocaust Museum to Christina's left Jackie come here gingrich of Carrollton Georgia and finally nutritionist Jenny Craig of Del Mar California let's hear from my table now I kid the speaker I kid the speaker but I know he'd love because after all his own press spokesman tony blankley said darkness has demonstrated once again that washington has little capacity to laugh as ahead itself so let's thank the speaker for being a good sport shall we was he laughing of course I can going to take a few jabs the speaker because anyone who's read my book knows I'm basically in the president's hip pocket there's actually a lot of perks to you know being the president's water carrier for example Harry Thomas and books all my travel and he's very good and this is something that gets just gets lost in the whole travelgate thing he got me a supersaver from from Denver Seattle when he had the 59 bucks he had the backdate the ticket no it's a little legal but anyway but Harry's great the great thing though is is that when Air Force One is available the president lends it to me and Air Force One is just great anybody here been on Air Force One table 41 is it great in the isn't air especially the front [Music] know them I tell you first of all like they not too many people know that but they have a zoo up there you know all kinds of animals 200 pound Python and then they got this this like skeleton of a triceratops which if you know if you're interested in that kind of thing it's just amazing because you can play with the bones you know and you can eat whatever you want you can just if you if you're a type person that kind of like no regard for your body you could just stuff your face you know up there in the front of Air Force One by the way there are a lot of parties thrown tonight by different media organizations put both before and after this event The Atlantic Monthly has asked me to do them a little favor evidently no one has RSVP'd to their after dinner a cocktail party honoring James Fallows so if you don't mind if you just shout it yes or no Koki but this year's has been a lot of criticism with the press the media has been accused of being shallow biased and obsessed with a horse race at the expense of the issues and I agree most of you are doing a very bad job there are some exceptions bill Schneider for example bill really cuts through the chaff and gets right to the point for example the day before the New Hampshire primary I was watching CNN and Bernard Shaw I asked him bill what do we look for tomorrow well Bernie the first thing to look for is who comes in first now the press is likely to portray that person as the big winner and winning in politics is very important in fact this race may well be determined by who wins the most primaries now Bernie the second thing to watch is who comes in second that person can claim to be the runner-up being runner-up isn't winning but it's the next best thing which brings us to the third thing to look for who comes in third bill yes Bernie the third place finisher won't be first or second but he won't be forth either which means he's still in the top three Thank You Bill Schneider bill will be back on Friday with his political play of the week bill any hints well Bernie I'm not making any promises but it may very well involve whoever comes in first thank you bill Schneider now I'm sure that you noticed and the president talked about about coming back ride riving in the know of dinner and they were attending a charity auction for for Chelsea's school and the president was actually on the auction block tonight let me read from these Sidwell Friends 1996 auction catalog item 48 a day with the president watch history in the making as first parent Bill Clinton provides a sworn deposition in the criminal trial of his former associates because the speaker do you understand [Applause] as I'm sure many of you have heard the president is making a cameo hmm in a TV movie on the make-a-wish Foundation and all the good work that they do in the movie the president will appear with a child whose wish it is to see him sign a budget agreement which reaches balance in seven years using CBO numbers the president will be playing himself and this is weird the part of Vice President Gore Gore will be played by Fred Thompson it is weird I've also been asked to introduced by the way here tonight as guests of Janet Reno and FBI director free table 19 the Montana Freeman it's all part of the new FBI C's negotiation are you guys ready to give up no take your time [Applause] kenneth starr was going to be here tonight but he had a conflict I also here tonight filmmaker Oliver Stone and Linda rabe is here too and this to me is very confusing because I've met Linda and she's terrific you know especially considering she's the daughter of the man who killed Kennedy what wait a min you people see JFK see evidently Kennedy wanted to get out of Vietnam and LBJ and the Mafia and Clay Shaw and the CIA would have no part of it oh wait a minute I'm talking to the very people who spent their entire careers covering this thing up well you know what I don't care cuz we in Hollywood tell the truth wherever it may lead and then come back and sit amongst the killers and eat their salmon [Applause] by the way also here tonight is Charles Murray who I understand has been hard at work on a sequel to the bell curve entitled jazz the music created by morons [Music] as Charles well knows when you when you're on a book tour you wind up bumping into a lot of authors who are other authors are on the circuit one I kept running into and spent a lot of time with was anonymous what a jackass now one of the embarrassing things about my book success was that I did knock the first lady's book it takes a village out of the number one position on the best hours list of course my book was then knocked off by another one of her books bloodsport I was I was actually a little disappointed by blood supports the I had thought it was going to be about Tom delays fundraising tactics see he's really tough on them I don't know if you saw that the EEOC I dropped its gender bias this week has gender bias case against Hooters after the restaurant chain agreed to hire male waiters but only if they have really big knockers I'm sorry I was just trying to keep Martin hoaxes interested for some people now the minimum wage is a big issue so during dinner we did an informal poll of the people in the room and the results break down pretty much the way you'd expect eighty-nine percent of the Democrats in the room favor an increase in the minimum wage 27 percent of the Republicans favor an increase and 100 percent of the waiters favor an increase in the minimum wage also Frank once did a focus group with the waiters back in the kitchen turns out the worst tipper is Arianna Huffington now and guess who the best tipper is tipper si Agnew silly jokes you know earlier I mentioned something about the president Nami nominated me for some position in the administration and I was just kidding because I would never want to undergo the brutal Senate confirmation process now I don't know if I could stand stand up to the brutal cross-examination of someone like Strom Thurmond which he was some kind of law revealed Troup yet perform on me you know senator that was that was TV that would be TV yes sir color color television you would you talking sorry sir I find may intercede on behalf of my esteemed colleague I think what senator Thurmond is attempting to ask your time are you bonafide ease if I may use that word because I'm not sure what it means though I I think I used it in the right context of your credentials and/or qualifications in so much as that relates to the jurisdiction and purview of this committee which those which words I believe are synonymous which I am told that they mean the same day well thank you ladies gentlemen you've been a wonderful wonderful audience sigh wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait one last thing mike mccurry would you do me a big favor could you make a point out of asking c-span not to run this I need the publicity [Applause]

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Id: lb86IVB5cuY

Length: 36min 21sec (2181 seconds)

Published: Sun Oct 08 2017