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Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

The second roast of Donald Trump

Read­ers who are reg­u­lar view­ers of Com­e­dy Cen­tral may recall that the net­work not long ago aired a roast of Don­ald Trump, the most recent in a series of pro­fan­i­ty-laced celebri­ty roasts that the Via­com sub­sidiary has sponsored.

Ear­li­er tonight, Trump was unex­pect­ed­ly roast­ed for a sec­ond time in as many months — except this time, it was Pres­i­dent Oba­ma doing the roast­ing, rather than the likes of Lisa Lam­pan­ell, at the 2011 White House Cor­re­spon­dents’ Dinner.

Here’s the rel­e­vant excerpt:

PRESIDENT OBAMA: There’s a vicious rumor float­ing around that I think could real­ly hurt Mitt Rom­ney. I heard he passed uni­ver­sal health­care when he was gov­er­nor of Mass­a­chu­setts. Some­one should get to the bot­tom of that… and I know just the guy to do it. Don­ald Trump is here tonight!

Now, I know that he’s tak­en some flak late­ly, but no one is hap­pi­er, no one is proud­er, to put this birth cer­tifi­cate mat­ter to rest than The Don­ald. And that’s because he can final­ly get back to focus­ing on the issues that mat­ter. Like, did we fake the moon land­ing? What real­ly hap­pened in Roswell? And where are Big­gie and Tupac?

All kid­ding aside, obvi­ous­ly, we all know about your cre­den­tials and breadth of expe­ri­ence. For exam­ple … no seri­ous­ly, just recent­ly, in an episode of Celebri­ty Appren­tice — at the steak­house — the men’s cook­ing team did not impress the judges from Oma­ha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, rec­og­nized that the real prob­lem was a lack of lead­er­ship, and so ulti­mate­ly, you did­n’t blame Lil Jon or Meat Loaf… you fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of deci­sions that would keep me up at night.

Well han­dled, sir! Well-handled!

Say what you will about Mr. Trump… he cer­tain­ly would bring some change to the White House. Let’s see what we’ve got up there.

The Donald Trump White House

Don­ald Trump’s White House, as envi­sioned by Pres­i­dent Oba­ma (Cour­tesy of C‑SPAN)

The New York Times reports that Trump did not take kind­ly to the jokes.

It was almost painful to watch, the jux­ta­po­si­tion of the pres­i­dent, flex­ing his new post-birther com­e­dy chops, and the real estate mogul-cum-politi­cian, gri­mac­ing at his table as Mr. Oba­ma basked in his post-long-form-birth-cer­tifi­cate glow.

Maybe it was painful for the Times’ Helene Coop­er, who does­n’t like to see rich white guys being roast­ed, but I enjoyed watch­ing Trump’s dis­com­fort immense­ly when the C‑SPAN cam­eras panned to him. Trump deserved to be made fun of at length after all the sil­ly non­sense he’s spout­ed on radio, cable tele­vi­sion, and day­time talk shows. He was prac­ti­cal­ly ask­ing for a ribbing.

And he got one — both from the Pres­i­dent and from Sat­ur­day Night Live’s Seth Mey­ers, the evening’s head­lin­er. Seth was­n’t pulling any punch­es either:

SETH MEYERS: And then of course there’s Don­ald Trump. Don­ald Trump has been say­ing that he will run for pres­i­dent as a Repub­li­can, which is sur­pris­ing, since I just assumed he was run­ning as a joke.

Don­ald Trump often appears on Fox, which is iron­ic, because a fox often appears on Don­ald Trump’s head.

If you’re at the Wash­ing­ton Post table with Trump, and you can’t fin­ish your entrée, don’t wor­ry… the fox will eat it.

And if I can, for a moment, talk about the birther issue. When did we get so sus­pi­cious about where peo­ple were born?

A USA Today poll last week said thir­ty-eight per­cent of Amer­i­cans think the Pres­i­dent was def­i­nite­ly born in the U.S. In the same poll — in the very same poll — only five per­cent more said Don­ald Trump was def­i­nite­ly born in the U.S. Has it reached the point where Amer­i­cans only think some­one was born here if they saw it?

I know I was born here. And I know my younger broth­er was born here. But when it comes to my old­er broth­er… I can only take him at his word.

Gary Busey said recent­ly that Don­ald Trump would make a great pres­i­dent. Of course, he said the same thing about an old rusty bird­cage he found.

Don­ald Trump owns the Miss USA pageant, which is great for Repub­li­cans, because it will stream­line their search for a vice president.

Don­ald Trump said recent­ly he has a great rela­tion­ship with the blacks. Though, unless “the Blacks” are a fam­i­ly of white peo­ple, I bet he’s mistaken.

I like that Trump is filthy rich, but nobody told his accent. His whole life is mod­els and gold leaf and mar­ble columns, but he still sounds like a know-it-all down at the O.T.B.

Mr. Trump may not be a good choice for pres­i­dent, but he would def­i­nite­ly make a great press sec­re­tary. How much fun would that be?

[imi­tat­ing Trump]

Kim Jong-il is a los­er. His lat­est ral­ly was a flop. I feel bad for Ahmadine­jad. He nev­er… The man wears a wind­break­er. He has no class. I, on the oth­er hand, sell my own line of ties. You can find it at Macy’s. In the flam­ma­ble section.

Through it all, Trump sat stone-faced, intent­ly look­ing for­ward, but nev­er laugh­ing (or even look­ing relaxed) as he was pep­pered with zingers.

He evi­dent­ly was­n’t hap­py that he had become the butt of the night’s best jokes, even though he him­self agreed to Com­e­dy Cen­tral’s propo­si­tion to have some of the coun­try’s most foul-mouthed come­di­ans roast him some time ago.

Then again, being made fun of by Lisa Lam­pan­el­li isn’t the same as being made fun of by the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States in front of the White House press corps.

So now we know: Don­ald Trump can’t stand to be made fun of by peo­ple with more cred­i­bil­i­ty than him.

That does­n’t bode well for his sup­posed pres­i­den­tial aspirations.

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One Comment

  1. I am appalled. This man can’t be president…I find this roast an insult to the Amer­i­can Public.

    # by Jeffrey :: May 7th, 2011 at 10:05 PM

One Ping

  1. […] “I like it that [Don­ald] Trump is filthy rich but nobody told his accent. His whole life is mod­els and gold leaf and mar­ble columns but he still sounds like a know-it-all down at the O.T.B.” — Seth Myers at the 2011 White House Cor­re­spon­dents Din­ner (tran­script here). […]

    Ping from Quote of the Day | Stiffs and Georges :: May 12th, 2011 at 11:40 AM
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