August 11 – Presidential Joke Day

nPostednon August 11, 2015

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nTherenis a long tradition of Americans making jokes at the expense of theirngovernment, including their presidents. But today is not aboutncomedians and other ordinary people joking about the president.nInstead, it is all about presidents, themselves, who make jokes.

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nThisnunofficial holiday commemorates August 11, 1984, when PresidentnRonald Reagan made a joke while doing a microphone test.

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nHenwas running for re-election, preparing to make a weekly speech onnNational Public Radio, helping with a sound check. The radiontechnicians doing the sound check may have been expecting to hear himnsay the normal (and boring) sound-check “testing, testing,” butninstead they heard Reagan say, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased tontell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russianforever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”

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nAtnleast one of the radio technicians told others what President Reagannhad said (even though everyone surely knew that Reagan was joking!),nand soon many people were talking about Reagan’s joke. And – sincenit was a microphone test – there was a recording of the joke, whichnwas soon leaked. The joke became so widely known that soon thenofficial Soviet news agency was condemning the joke, calling it ann“unprecedented and hostile attack.” n

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nHerenare some jokes cracked by a variety of presidents:

nJohnnF. Kennedy (to Nobel Prize winners):

n“Inthink this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of humannknowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House,nwith the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.“

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nGeorgenW. Bush:
n“Thesenstories about my intellectual capacity really get under my skin. Younknow, for a while I even thought my staff believed it. There on mynschedule first thing every morning it said, ‘IntelligencenBriefing.'”
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nBillnClinton:

n“Beingnpresident is like running a cemetery: you’ve got a lot of peoplenunder you and nobody’s listening.”

nTheodorenRoosevelt:
“When they call the roll in the Senate, thenSenators do not know whether to answer ‘present’ or ‘not guilty.'”

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nRonaldnReagan (the oldest president to take office):

n“Onenof my favorite quotations about age comes from Thomas Jefferson. Hensaid that we should never judge a president by his age, only by hisnwork. And ever since he told me that, I’ve stopped worrying.”

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JohnnAdams:

n”In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.’

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AbrahamnLincoln (accused of being two-faced, or dishonest):

n“If I werentwo faced, would I be wearing this one?”
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nBaracknHussein Obama:

n“Manynof you know that I got my name, Barack, from my father. What you maynnot know is Barack is actually Swahili for ‘That One.’ And I got mynmiddle name from somebody who obviously didn’t think I’d ever run fornpresident.”

nObama has a great sense of humor, as we can see from the many funny videos people have posted, like this one, that one, and this one over here.

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