Toastmasters Humorist: Politician Bloopers and Gaffes

My Toastmasters Club has a long tradition of beginning each meeting with a 2-minute joke or humorous story, to kind of break the ice and get the meeting off an a light note.  This week, I took my first attempt at being the "humorist."  I thought I did well, using much more expression and tonal variety than in my first 2 speeches.  I'm also very pleased that I was able to make it through the whole thing without referring to my notes!  Here is the text I put together to get folks laughing:

We have all been subjected, in the last couple weeks, to a rather large dose of partisan politics from Washington, D.C.  The air in our nation’s capital is said to be toxic with partisanship.  Well, today, they have ALL earned the right to be roasted, in a non-partisan way, as we take review some of my personal favorite bloopers and gaffes from politicians.

First, on the 2008 Presidential campaign trail, then-Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden famously declared, “Look, John’s last minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the number one job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: Jobs.  J-O-B-S.  Jobs.”

Over to the other side of the aisle, former Vice President Dan Quayle had so many classic bloopers, I have to give you at least two of them.  Once as Mr. Quayle began a speech at NASA, he quipped, in all seriousness, “Welcome to President Bush, Mrs. Bush, and my fellow astronauts.”  In another speech, Quayle profoundly observed, “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.”

Back to the left, during an investigation in the midst of her husband’s presidency, Hillary Clinton put her foot down.  “I’m not going to have reporters pawing through our papers,” she said.  “We are the president.”

Finally, my #1 all-time favorite, from whom else, but the eminently quotable former President George W. Bush.  In the opening of a 2004 speech in Nashville, as he acknowledged various dignitaries and notable audience members, Bush said, “Karyn is with us.  A West Texas girl, just like me!”