Where Was the Outrage When Bush Joked About WMDs?

Hmm...maybe conservatives and the White House press corps would have applauded Stephen Colbert if, rather than rip Bush and the lapdog media to shreds, he looked under the table for WMDs.

Editor & Publisher's Greg Mitchell raises a good point as the right-wing continues bashing Colbert for his brilliant performance Saturday night:

I have to ask: Where was the outrage when President Bush made fun of not finding those pesky WMDs at a very similar media dinner--in the same ballroom--two years ago? It represents a shameful episode for the American media, and presidency, yet is rarely mentioned today.

It occurred on March 24, 2004. The setting: The 60th annual black-tie dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents Association (with many print journalists there as guests) at the Washington Hilton. On the menu: surf and turf. Attendance: 1500. The main speaker: President George W. Bush, one year into the Iraq war, with 500 Americans already dead.

President Bush, as usual at such gatherings of journalists, poked fun at himself. Audiences love to laugh along with, rather than at, a president, for a change. It shows they are good sports, which many people (including the president) often doubt. It's all in good fun, except when it's in bad fun, such as on that night in March 2004.

That night, in the middle of his stand-up routine before the (perhaps tipsy) journos, Bush showed on a screen behind him some candid on-the-job photos of himself. One featured him gazing out a window, as Bush narrated, smiling: "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."

According to the transcript this was greeted with "laughter and applause" from the audience.