Free Republic

Soon-to-be "Tonight Show" host Jay Leno will headline the White House Correspondents Dinner in May. The White House Correspondents Association confirmed Leno's appearances to the The Hill on Friday. The Correspondents Association said that Leno was asked to emcee the event before he became embroiled in the controversy surrounding "The Tonight Show." Leno — who retired as "Tonight Show" host late last year — was recently asked by NBC to take over his former 11:35 p.m. time slot in favor of Conan O'Brien, who has been on the job for just over six months.

You may remember the evening of Sept. 29, 2001. On that evening, Rudy Giuliani appeared on Saturday Night Live. It was 18 days after the September 11 attacks. This appearance of the mayor of New York — who had spent almost three weeks comforting a shaken nation, mourning with families of the murdered, and leading — was widely considered a signal: We could laugh again. We needed to laugh. Heaven knows, Giuliani must have needed it as much as anyone. Laughter can be a beautiful thing, a great gift in difficult times. A way to reach those who might not...

Oh, boy, Wanda Sykes is in trouble. That's what you get when you make fun of Rush Limbaugh. But while conservatives were screaming Monday, let's face it: Sykes said something mean but also funny about the right-leaning Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents Association dinner Saturday night. Boy, Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails – so you said you hope America fails ....To me, that's treason. He's not saying anything differently than what Osama bin Laden is saying. You know, you might want to look into this, sir, 'cause I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker,...

[Title Condensed For FreeRepublic] I could only stomach to watch the pregame of the White House Correspondent's Dinner on C-SPAN, starring President Obama, as the press corps, hard-pressing credibility as well as credulity, stomped down the Brown Carpet (not Red Carpet) like something you might see at the Chicago Stockyards. The in-the-tank journalists from the most famous of near bankrupt newspapers were caked-up with makeup so much one might think they were witnessing a transvestite competition. And, the Hollywood types, who were not aware that the dinner was for faux reporters looked equally cheap. Noisy, hoggish, devilish, unnatural was the...

President Obama drew big laughs at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday, taking jabs at his administration, his Republican rivals and even himself. President Obama delivers some one-liners at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday. President Obama delivers some one-liners at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday. "I would like to talk about what my administration plans to achieve in the next 100 days," Obama said. "During the second 100 days, we will design, build and open a library dedicated to my first 100 days." He added later, "I believe that my next 100...

Barack Obama Celebrity Roast: Wanda Sykes At White House Correspondents Dinner (Complete Video)

Was this a correspondents dinner or a meeting at MoveOn.org? Wanda Sykes takes shots at Cheney, Bush, Rush Limbaugh and drugs, Sean Hannity and a vicious shot at Sarah Palin, this was truly disgraceful....

Mostly a highlight reel, but still worth it. The best jokes are at Cheney's expense. If you're looking for where he conducts the Marine band, skip ahead to halfway through clip two.

To mark our tenth annual freep against media bias outside the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, the D.C. Chapter of FreeRepublic.com will hold an awards ceremony to announce the ten worst examples of media reporting over the past ten years.Nominations are being accepted on this thread from now until 9 a.m. EDT Monday, April 21. Voting will commence shortly after that and will close at 3 p.m. EDT Friday, April 25.Nominees should be backed with quotes and source links. Acceptable nominees are news media outlets, reporters, commentators, photographers, editors and executives. The time period runs from 1999 through 2008. The...

WASHINGTON A blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close. Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator. Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.” He attacked those...

All FReepers and lurkers in good standing are invited to join the D.C. Chapter of Free Republic at our 8th annual freep of the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday, April 29, 2006 in Washington, D.C.This is our most fun freep of the year. You never know who in the media and political world you'll meet there. Over the years, we've met and debated the likes of Al Franken, razzed Paul Begala and James Carville, been filmed by Drew Barrymore, cheered on Fox News reporters and freeped the liberal media with humor and serious barbs.Afterward, we retire to the hotel...

NEW YORK Will Valerie Plame be the talk of this year's White House Correspondents Dinner? E&P has confirmed that she is slated to attend this year's gala, along with her husband Joseph Wilson and several other notable non-journalist guests, such as Alex Trebek and Ben Rothlisberger, according to organizers. As in the past, attendees at the annual black-tie affair, to be held on April 29 this year, often look for a controversial visitor who might spark extended gossip around the open bar. When outsiders such as Donna Rice, Michael Moore, Fawn Hall or Ozzie Osborne were escorted to the gathering,...

<p>WASHINGTON (AP) -- First lady Laura Bush stole the show with a surprise comedy routine that ripped President Bush and brought an audience that included much of official Washington and a dash of Hollywood to a standing ovation at a dinner honoring award-winning journalists.</p>

For a guy who famously does not read the papers, George W. Bush sure knows how the fourth estate gets its kicks. So when the president appeared last week at the 60th annual dinner of the Radio and Television News Correspondents Association to roast himself for the benefit of people whose contempt for him comes with a dental plan, he brought his best stuff. While screening a slide show of photographs of himself in various amusing positions, the president put up a picture of himself searching for something under Oval Office furniture. "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to...

(Editor's note: In response to our invitation in Friday's Best of the Web Today, we've thus far received e-mails from 101 readers who identified themselves as members of the U.S. armed forces, service members' relatives, veterans or military trainees. This is a selection of those e-mails. Of those who wrote, three expressed disapproval of President Bush's jokes at last Wednesday's Radio and Television Correspondents dinner; the other 98 approved. We've printed all three of the disapproving letters first so that they don't get lost amid all the others; the approving ones start here. In deference to the tradition that military...

<p>WASHINGTON -- Democratic critics and some family members of soldiers serving in Iraq are taking President Bush to task for his jokes at a black-tie dinner about the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction.</p> <p>The jokes came at Wednesday night's annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner. In a 10-minute, mostly puckish, self-deprecating speech, the president presented a slide show he called "an election-year, White House photo album."</p>

What happens when the San Francisco mayor who pushed gay marriage onto the national agenda visits the nation’s capital? March 26 - It's hard to be both a rising star and a pariah, but that's what San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is in the Democratic Party. His approval rating is 67 percent, but many Democrats believe he hurt his party's chances in November by forcing the issue of gay marriage. Newsom was in Washington this week, but he wasn't conferring with John Kerry or anybody else outside of the California delegation. "Politicians aren't lining up to see me or meet...

Believe it or not, once upon a time, the Democratic party knew how to party. We conservatives were the staid, humorless, easily offended sticks-in-the-mud, while our liberal counterparts spent tax dollars on irreverent performance art and told us to lighten up. The Left had Lenny Bruce and the Smothers Brothers, while the Right had the comedic stylings of Richard Milhous Nixon. Wanna guess who was having more fun? The current brouhaha surrounding President Bush's performance at the Radio and Television Correspondent's Dinner shows just how completely things have changed. Liberals, who urge taxpayers to be tolerant of portraits of the...

WASHINGTON (March 26) - President Bush's humorous references to the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have drawn criticism from Democrats as inappropriate for wartime. The White House and Republicans contend the president was just poking fun at himself. President Bush acknowledges a crowd of supporters. ''This is a very serious issue,'' Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said Friday on ''Good Morning America'' on ABC. ''We've lost hundreds of troops, as you know, over there. Let's not be laughing about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction.'' Bush provided amusing descriptions of photographs Wednesday night...

ELECTION 2004Kerry whacks Bush on WMD commentResponds to president's joke delivered at dinner, asks 'He thinks that's funny?' Posted: March 25, 20045:42 p.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry hammered President Bush today for making a joke about the lack of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction at a media correspondents' dinner in Washington, D.C. last night During Bush's light-hearted presentation, which included several slides of him and White House staff, he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," while showing a photo of himself looking under furniture in the Oval Office. Shortly thereafter another image...