Obama's 'famously funny' predecessors

by Mark Jacob

Perhaps President Barack Obama's sense of humor needs a bailout.

During the campaign, he made a quip about "lipstick on a pig," and John McCain's campaign accused him of insulting Sarah Palin.

After his election, he was asked whether he had spoken with any ex-presidents. He answered that he had consulted all the living ones but "didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances."

He later apologized to the former first lady.

Now, Obama is saying he's sorry for comments on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in which he said his bowling ability was "like Special Olympics, or something."

Maybe he's finally learned the same lesson as Bill Clinton, who said: "I used to have a sense of humor, but they told me it wasn't presidential, so I had to quit."

While we can expect a more serious and somber future with Obama, let's reflect on some sillier days.

FAMOUSLY FUNNY PRESIDENTS:

Abraham Lincoln was displeased with his beverage at a hotel. "If this is coffee, please bring me some tea," he told a waiter. "If this is tea, please bring me some coffee." Another time, a job applicant asked Lincoln to appoint him as a postal inspector, replacing a man who had just died. "Can I take his place?" the applicant asked. Lincoln answered: "Well, it's all right with me if it's all right with the undertaker."

Ronald Reagan kept his sense of humor even after being shot in 1981. He told his wife, "Honey, I forget to duck." Reagan also liked to make fun of his age. "When I was in fifth grade, I'm not sure that I knew what a national debt was. Of course, when I was in the 5th grade, we didn't have one."

Lyndon Johnson said: "I seldom think of politics more than 18 hours a day."

Franklin Roosevelt's best oratorical advice was: "Be sincere, be brief, be seated."

Theodore Roosevelt made a comment that resonates today because of financial malfeasance at high levels: "A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad."

SURPRISINGLY FUNNY PRESIDENTS

Calvin Coolidge was shy and unassuming. In fact, one critic said he was "distinguishable from the furniture only when he moved." But in fact, Silent Cal was a cutup. When Coolidge was advised to boost military aviation, he asked, "Why can't we just buy one airplane and have the pilots take turns?"

Herbert Hoover, pilloried because of the Great Depression, didn't take himself too seriously. Upon the birth of his granddaughter, he said, "Thank God she doesn't have to be confirmed by the Senate."

UNFUNNY PRESIDENTS

James Buchanan was just plain dull. Sen. John Sherman once said of him: "The Constitution provides for every accidental contingency in the executive -- except a vacancy in the mind of the president."

Millard Fillmore declined an honorary degree from Oxford University because he felt undereducated and feared ridicule from students. "They would probably ask, 'Who's Fillmore? What's he done? Where did he come from?' And then my name would ... give them an excellent opportunity to make jokes at my expense."

SCRIPTED HUMOR

At a few designated events, politicians are allowed to be funny. Examples include the Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner in Washington and the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York. But those events are poor measurement of a presidential candidate's sense of humor because the jokes generally are written by professionals. A few remarks from last year's Al Smith dinner:

John McCain: "This campaign needed the common touch of the working man. After all, it began so long ago with the heralded arrival of the man known to Oprah Winfrey as 'The One.' Being a friend and colleague of Barack, I just called him 'That One.' He doesn't mind at all. In fact, he even has a pet name for me: George Bush."

Obama: "Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth."

REALLY BAD TASTE

George W. Bush tried too hard to please the crowd at the correspondents dinner in May 2004. He showed photos taken inside the White House, including one in which he looked under furniture in the Oval Office. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," Bush joked. "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?" That might have been funny if not for the fact that 80 U.S. troops died that month in Iraq.

Ronald Reagan's greatest humor atrocity occurred in 1984, when he was doing a sound check before a radio broadcast. "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes."

WORST JOKES BY PEOPLE WHO DIDN'T QUITE REACH THE PRESIDENCY

Former Republican candidate Mike Huckabee offered the lamest ad-lib last year. Speaking to the National Rifle Association in May, his talk was interrupted by noise backstage and he said, "That was Barack Obama, he just tripped off a chair, he's getting ready to speak. ... Somebody aimed a gun at him and he dove for the floor."

Last June, Vice President Dick Cheney discussed his family roots and how he's distantly related to Obama. He also noted that there are Cheneys on both sides of his family. "And we don't even live in West Virginia," he added. He later apologized for insulting an entire state.

McCain has a long and weird history of joke-telling. When the Clintons' daughter was a teenager, McCain said at a fundraiser: "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." Another quip from McCain: "The nice thing about Alzheimer's is you get to hide your own Easter eggs." Early in the 2008 race, he sang "Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann."

SOLEMN SWEAR WORDS

Richard Nixon lost by a razor-thin margin to John Kennedy in 1960, and then had to watch Kennedy's eloquent inaugural address. When Nixon ran into Kennedy speechwriter Ted Sorenson later in Chicago, they talked about the address.

"I wish that I had said some of those things," Nixon told him.

"What part?" Sorenson asked. "That part about 'Ask not what your country can do for you ... '?"

"No," said Nixon. "The part that starts, 'I do solemnly swear ... ' "

Sources: Chicago Tribune news services; politico.com; "Great Presidential Wit: I Wish I Was in the Book" by Bob Dole; "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the White House" by Charles Osgood; and "The Concise Columbia Dictionary of Quotations" by Robert Andrews