I Cogitate

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- What was meant by President Bush to be a joke about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has brought little laughter to some Americans.

During the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner this week, Bush presented a slide show of quirky photographs from inside the White House. In one, the president is looking 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?"

Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
March 30, 2004

When presidents appear appear at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, it's traditional for them to tell a few jokes.  But when George W. Bush appeared last week (3/24/04), he made a series of "jokes" about the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that had been the central justification of his invasion of Iraq.  Part of Bush's routine included slides showing administration officials looking around the White House for something. "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere," Bush explained while showing one of the images, which elicited laughter from the audience of politicians and media figures.

Interestingly, Bush's comments were hardly controversial to the Beltway press corps, which seemed to write it off as harmlessly "self-deprecating" humor.  Many of the press accounts the next day did not raise questions about Bush's humorous reference to his administration's bogus rationale for a war that has cost thousands of lives-- American and Iraqi.  For the media, such humor was expected.  "Well, every night we hear people on TV telling jokes about President Bush, but last night it was the president's turn to tell jokes about the president," CBS anchor Julie Chen explained (3/25/04), adding that "at least someone's making jokes about it other than the late-night talk show hosts."

CNN's American Morning show on March 25 provided a glimpse at the gulf between the media reaction and the public response to Bush's sense of humor.  After playing some clips from Bush's speech, CNN anchor Bill Hemmer mentioned that "there was a slideshow shown a little later. Maybe we'll get to that later in our broadcast.  There were some good funny lines in that, too."

But once CNN aired Bush's weapons jokes, its audience saw what the anchors and correspondents missed.  CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien announced that the program was getting a surprisingly negative stream of emails from viewers, and asked Hemmer what the reaction at the dinner had been. He explained:

"I think the reception was pretty receptive, for lack of a better phrase. I can understand what you're hearing.  There was a little rumbling about whether or not it was sensitive enough to the reality that we all know two and a half years later, also with the situation in Iraq as well.  But overall, I think it was a speech that was given a way where the presidenttried to show a sense of humor, and I think, for the most part, it was taken that way."  As the morning wore on, CNN co-anchor Jack Cafferty read numerous messages from outraged viewers, and characterized the reaction as "overwhelmingly" negative...

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