"I Don't Need To See Your Nipples"

I too am bored of President Obama's man mammaries. So whatever her designs on Rush Limbaugh's kidneys, comedian Wanda Sykes did something on Saturday's roast of the president that most Washingtonians are simply unfamiliar with -- she killed.

Who else would have (could have) asked, "Who voted for the mulatto?" and actually gotten the notoriously straight-laced DC prom-goers to laugh like they were in straitjackets? Okay, fine, Stephen Colbert did it (then again, look how that turned out). Sykes's joke about the next white president moving the newly unveiled bust of Sojourner Truth "to the kitchen" fell on deaf ears because it wasn't funny, not because you can't make slave jokes. Well, not everybody can. And that's the point.

Who Sykes is--namely funny and black--played a major role in her ability to say of President Obama's love of basketball, "That's one step forward and two steps back." Get it? Black people? Basketball? Stereotypes? And the one about First Lady Obama not wearing sleeves because "the country is broke right now" was hilarious without being offensive or overly sensitive. Make fun of these people, I beg of you!

At a stand up event hosted by the Writers Guild of America East the night before Sykes' performance, "Colbert Report" writer Opus Moreschi explained that the funniest jokes come from "a shared experience." When I asked why we're still laughing at President Bush when this new guy (with HUGE ears) has been in office for more than three months, a writer at "The Late Show with David Letterman" said Obama was just "too damn competent."

Then he assured me, "We're looking. We'd love to have him slip on an area rug." Maybe someone could strategically place a banana peel near the South Lawn. Or maybe not.