Laura Bush on White House Correspondent's Dinner Speech (C-SPAN)

Former First Lady Laura Bush talks about telling jokes at the White House Correspondents Dinner in an exclusive interview with CSPAN for its First Ladies series. More information here

"Well, that was to the White House Correspondents' Dinner, the famous dinner where, as George says, everyone comes in and makes fun with the President and then the President comes on and makes fun of himself. And so George had given actually very funny speeches. George is very funny and he'd been very funny at everyone at those White House Correspondents' Dinners. And there's not just the White House Correspondents' Dinner, there's also the Gridiron Dinner and the Alfalfa Dinner and the Photographers' Dinner.

There are a lot of dinners where the President has to make, you know, have a funny speech and make fun of himself. So that year, George said, "I think, you know, I can't even come up with another joke, why don't you do it this year?" So I said, OK." She continues, "I knew that I would have - I've obviously worked with joke writers, everyone does work with joke writers for that speech and that it would be funny and it was funny and I think shocking to people as well.

I remember I was sitting next to the President at the White House Historical - White House Correspondents' who obviously didn't know I was going to spring up. And so George stands up, you know, make some joke - tries to make some sort of lame joke and I jumped up and pushed him out of the way and say, "No, no. Not that old joke again."

And when I did it, people that were sitting by me gasp. They were shocked. I mean, I think they thought something was wrong, you know, that I was jumping up like that to move over to the podium.

But it was fun. But anyway, that's when I call myself a desperate housewife. And it was funny in the United States and everyone understands it, I think, and knows that that's a roast and that's, you know, what everyone at those White House Correspondents' Dinners are like, everyone making fun of the President. But the people from overseas were shocked, I think, and after that, when we would travel overseas that some world leader would say, are you a desperate housewife?"