Offerman: Good evening They've left a gavel up here for me, it's
apparently a stout American white oak so things get unruly will call this room
to order. Good evening it's a great honor to be
here, my sisters and I look forward to coming
to this event every year since march of 2011 Syria...shit. Excuse me. Good evening. And thank you for having me here tonight
it really is a great honor and don't worry I'm being paid significantly less
than Jill Abramson to do this job. I grew up in a small town. My late grandpa Ray was the mayor of my
hometown Minooka, IL. I come from a line of farmer politicians
so it's only natural that I would end up here speaking to this evening. And the
citizens of our town loved my grandfather. Whenever he addressed the townspeople he
always opened with this joke and I thought it was appropriate so I thought I would try to endear
myself to you in a similar fashion. A bus loaded with politicians was driving down
a country road when suddenly the bus ran off the road and straight into old
Pete's barn it's a terrible accident. Old Pete got
off his tractor and went to investigate the carnage which was considerable after
some consideration he saw no choice but to dig a large hole and bury the
politicians. A few days later the local sheriff came
out and saw the crash bus and ask old Pete what happened to the politicians Pete
told him he had buried them. "Well good lord," the sheriff asked him, "were
they all dead?" Old Pete said well some of them said they weren't but you know you
never can trust a politician. I should apologize by the way if you were
expecting my mustache. I'm with UTA and my mustache is with CAA.
It's currently engaged in a Jarritos soda campaign down at the world cup. I was very excited when I heard get to
meet the White House Chief of Staff, but it turns out that position has
nothing at all to do with stick fighting. You know a lot more might get done in
this town if disputes were settled with a bo staff. I'm sure you all heard the news
about Eric Cantor on Tuesday he tragically got himself a job at Fox News. He's the first house majority leader to
lose a primary since 1899, which is also the last time we were
at war with Spain so watch yourself Spain. Tonight's dinner celebrated Washington
DC itself a city with a rich history of music and art and diplomats getting away
with vehicular homicide. Something that upsets me though about this gorgeous
town is that DC residents in fact have to pay federal income tax despite not
having a vote in Congress. We we literally fought a revolution over that
like Massachusetts not letting straight people get married. That one requires a little math. Between
the Republicans and Democrats the city has become let's face it and a noxious stink hole
we're very little actually gets done because of the backstabbing deceit and
greed so I just want to thank all of you for
making a Hollywood actor like myself feel welcome. Right at home. But Republicans have come around on sex
education, I heard they finally decided to teach fracking and schools. Can I say
that on c-span? Gay marriage is now legal in
Pennsylvania in the space of just a few weeks, they got rid of their anti-gay marriage
law, and Michael Vick, well done PA. With anti-gay marriage laws
toppling so easily I'm starting to worry it's a trap like
perhaps the Koch brothers are just distracting us while they escape on a
spaceship. A giant gay spaceship. Growing up on a farm family there were some early lessons and
politics. For example in Illinois we had these tenacious little black beetles
indestructible and we often have these big family picnics that involved frosty mugs & and draft beer. And these
beetles would dive fly straight into your beer so that if you didn't keep it
covered eventually they would all be in there
for the free beer and sincerely these bugs were known as Democrats. Some people
assume because I'm an actor I'm a Democrat. And other people assume that because I like
to hunt and build things I'm a Republican. I am neither I am a proud bull moose. Teddy Roosevelt was a personal hero of
mine. He was a man's man with a powerful mustache, an adventurous spirit, and no
patience whatsoever for this sort of nonsense. He probably wouldn't be a big fan of
this room to be honest the the news media speaks very loudly and does not
own any sticks. But I am proud to live in a representative democracy. Congress is almost entirely made up of
rich white men just like me. I appreciate it. Speaking of them, Comcast and Time
warner are about to merge, which I think is great because NBC is owned by Comcast
and I am contractually obligated to think that. Comcast and Time Warner Cable were just
named the two most hated companies in America, which is pretty impressive, because GM
basically just murdered a bunch of people and they're not even not even in
the top ten. You could start a company whose entire
business model was to set dogs on fire and then their owners have to pay to put
them out and they still wouldn't be as hated as Time Warner Cable. According to the Supreme Court
corporations are now considered people, which I think is great because it's
always been my dream to punch Time Warner Cable in the face. Let's be honest pretty much all of our
bosses are evil. NBC is owned by Comcast, CNN is owned by
Time Warner, and Fox is owned by an Australian supervillain. Happy trails to Jay Carney, the messenger we all love
to shoot. And after all Jay was - in the parlance of old racists - one of the good
ones. As you are no doubt aware, Georgia has
adopted some new gun legislation allowing idiots to openly wield a
firearm in church, the post office, bars, movie theaters, the
library, etc, but not the state house. Basically any of the places where people
are prone to get excited or well go postal, except for the lawmakers own place of
employment. But uh if you live in Georgia rest assured you'll never need to back
down again when wrestling another reader for the last copy of wind in the willows. What's that you're out of the Elvis
forever stamps? How about now? The Second Amendment protects our right
to own guns specifically so that we can defend our country from invading armies
or from our own federal government should a king end up taking over things
and trying to make things more royal around here. The second amendment is not there to
protect our right to intimidate the teenage cashier at chipotle. I feel like we as a country - present company included - are a little
unclear these days about the first ten
amendments so it's all right with you I'm gonna run us through a brief Bill of
Rights refresher course. The First Amendment for example
guarantees freedom of speech, but freedom of speech does not mean freedom from
criticism. That confusion is just one of the many things that Fox News and Donald
Sterling have in common just because the government can't punish
you for saying something stupid doesn't mean the rest of us can't. And we
will. We as a country enjoy punishing people for saying stupid things. That,
fireworks, and the missionary position are basically the three most American things
I can think of. The first amendment also ensures us the freedom of religion and
for anybody out there claiming that America was in any way founded as a
Christian nation just stop it. It's nonsense. Just
look at the Bill of Rights itself, it's a meticulously worded and signed legal
contract. If anything this is proof that America was founded as a Jewish country. Come on. I'm, I'm a firm believer in the Second
Amendment. In fact I consider myself to be a second amendment originalist. That means I believe every man or woman
has the right to bear arms, but only these the same arms that our country's
forefathers bore in the 18th century, muskets. I'm talking black powder, muzzle
loaded smoothbore guns fashioned with a bayonet. And then, only as a last resort,
if you have a beef with me I am going to expect you to try and resolve it using
reasonable discourse using your words and civility. Now if our tempers are flared past the
point of civil discourse, then I expect you to challenge me in an honorable
contest of fisticuffs like a grown adult. But to remove oneself to the safe range
of a firearm to settle a dispute in America is nothing short of cowardly. Add
the ease of automatic firing capability and I will declare you nothing short of
lily livered. For shame, it's hard for a man to shoot you when
you're shaking his hand. Now a bunch of nincompoops in Texas thought it would
be a good idea to bring shotguns into a Chili's to prove some sort of point, but
all it did was remind everybody how fucked up it is that you're allowed to
bring shotguns into a family restaurant in Texas. Chili's responded by banning guns
because by God if you're gonna shit your pants in a chilis it's going to be
because of the food. By God. The third amendment says that soldiers
aren't allowed to come and sleep in your house if you don't want them to. This is
a good amendment. I don't feel like there's a lot of
confusion about this one. However reasonable this is the only
amendment that could easily be swapped into the terms of service of Airbnb,
however. The Fourth Amendment we seem to have forgotten about all
together. Did someone at the NSA actually spill barbecue sauce on this one
because it doesn't say some unreasonable search and seizure. When the closest
analogue to our government's behavior is Billy Baldwin in the movie Sliver, something has gone terribly wrong. The Fifth Amendment is mostly for people
to invoke during the second half of Law and Order. Basically five through seven or just
things for people to yell during jury shows or lawyer shows. For example the
sixth amendment sets up the founding principles of jury duty, so at this point I think if most people
had to choose between jury duty and letting a soldier crash on your couch we would choose the latter. The Eighth Amendment protects us from
cruel and unusual punishment, which apparently does not include strapping a
citizen to a table and murdering them. I guess that's some sort of judgment
call. The rest of the civilized world has stopped practicing capital punishment, meanwhile officials in Oklahoma are now
making lethal injections the way I make a barbecue rub. "Oh, we don't have sodium thiopental, screw it,
just throw some cumin in there and some crushed rock salt that ought to do the trick." The ninth and
tenth amendments are really just there to make sure people don't get cute with
all the other ones. Like in movies when somebody looks in the rule book and says,
"well there's nothing in here that says a chimp can't play baseball." Well those two amendments are there to make sure that a chimp doesn't get to play baseball just because no one thought to
explicitly forbid chimps from playing baseball. Let's try a little harder from here on
out, shall we? You can't just pretend that the
Constitution says whatever you wanted to say-- that's what the Bible, expiration dates,
and speed limit signs are for. Thank you very much for having me, I
appreciate it. [Applause]
