On Monday night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart warmly recalled Stephen Colbert having the "titanium balls" to mock President Bush at the White House correspondents dinner in 2006. Predictably, he also came to the defense of Wanda Sykes for going soft on Obama and wishing Rush Limbaugh dead at this year's dinner.
Wanda Sykes
By Tim Graham | May 12, 2009 | 4:09 PM EDT
By Tim Graham | May 11, 2009 | 11:17 PM EDT
On Monday morning’s Today, NBC seemed to respond to Wanda Sykes making jokes about hoping Rush Limbaugh being the 20t terrorist and hoping his kidneys would fail...by making the issue Limbaugh’s potential to be a liability for the Republicans. There was no question whether Wanda Sykes was a liability for the Democrats, or the White House correspondents who invited her to wish Limbaugh dead on a national stage.
By Kyle Drennen | May 11, 2009 | 2:53 PM EDT
<div style="float: right"><object width="240" height="194"><param name="movie" value="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=yd6UQuaG8z&c1=0x363289&... name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf?v=yd6UQuaG8z&c1=0x363289&... allowfullscreen="true" width="240" height="194"></embed></object></div>On Monday’s CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith and weatherman Dave Price described attending Saturday’s White House Correspondents Dinner and Smith commented on the controversial joke about Rush Limbaugh made by comedian Wanda Sykes: "She told a joke about Rush Limbaugh as being one of the -- one of the hijackers and the reason he didn't make the flight was because he was, you know, on drugs or whatever...And the whole place -- yeah -- so the whole place groaned, and <b>I ran into Keith Olbermann afterwards...And he said 'I'm not sure, I think that was probably -- probably in bad taste.' I said 'what do you think her job is?’"</b><p>In one of many jokes attacking conservatives, Sykes remarked: "I think maybe Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker, but he was just so strung out on oxycontin he missed his flight." Apparently, while even left-wing bomber thrower Keith Olbermann thought that was over the line, Smith defended Sykes: <b>"Well, you know what, any comedian, anybody who does that job, their job is to push the envelope</b>...You can't go home -- you can't go home to the community of comedians unless you've gone too far."</p><p>Co-host Julie Chen later wondered: "But how did the room react, you guys, who was there?" Smith replied: "They groaned, serious groan...And Michelle Obama, in particular, was very uncomfortable with some of Wanda Sykes." Dave Price explained: "It was pretty much the only groan. I mean, there were a couple of other small ones. But she was -- she was pretty much en fuego [on fire]." </p>
By Matthew Balan | May 11, 2009 | 12:16 PM EDT 
On CNN’s Sunday Morning program, anchor John King revealed that he thought comedian Wanda Sykes’ barb at Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was in poor taste: “You know, I don’t give personal opinions that often, but I give you one here. I think that one was probably a tad over the taste line, and you could sense that around the room. Even Democrats, who are no fan [sic] of Rush Limbaugh -- a lot of them had a little bit of a cringe at that moment.” King later brought up the issue with Republican operative Mary Matalin and the Huffington Post’s Hilary Rosen on his own State of the Union program, where Rosen defended Sykes’ off-color joke.
King brought up Sykes during a segment with anchors T.J. Holmes and Betty Nguyen just before the bottom half of the 8 am Eastern hour. After briefly mentioning some of President Obama’s act at the dinner, King mentioned how the comedian “did cause some groans and some -- some uncomfortable moments in the room.” Nguyen replied that “we’ve gotten a lot of traffic on our Twitter and Facebook pages” about Sykes’ attack on Limbaugh, and asked how her act went over. The State of the Union anchor answered:
On CNN’s Sunday Morning program, anchor John King revealed that he thought comedian Wanda Sykes’ barb at Rush Limbaugh at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was in poor taste: “You know, I don’t give personal opinions that often, but I give you one here. I think that one was probably a tad over the taste line, and you could sense that around the room. Even Democrats, who are no fan [sic] of Rush Limbaugh -- a lot of them had a little bit of a cringe at that moment.” King later brought up the issue with Republican operative Mary Matalin and the Huffington Post’s Hilary Rosen on his own State of the Union program, where Rosen defended Sykes’ off-color joke.King brought up Sykes during a segment with anchors T.J. Holmes and Betty Nguyen just before the bottom half of the 8 am Eastern hour. After briefly mentioning some of President Obama’s act at the dinner, King mentioned how the comedian “did cause some groans and some -- some uncomfortable moments in the room.” Nguyen replied that “we’ve gotten a lot of traffic on our Twitter and Facebook pages” about Sykes’ attack on Limbaugh, and asked how her act went over. The State of the Union anchor answered:
KING: Some people were laughing because most of the jokes leading up to it were very funny, and people were laughing, and then you could sort of sense a little bit of the oxygen come out of the room -- people start to cringe a little bit. You know, I don’t give personal opinions that often, but I give you one here. I think that one was probably a tad over the taste line, and you could sense that around the room. Even Democrats, who are no fan [sic] of Rush Limbaugh -- a lot of them had a little bit of a cringe at that moment.
By Noel Sheppard | May 10, 2009 | 10:59 AM EDT
Time's Joe Klein on Sunday accused conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh of "delivering misinformation, lies to a large audience in America."
Such was said during quite a debate between himself and the Washington Times' Amanda Carpenter on CNN's "Reliable Sources."
By Noel Sheppard | May 10, 2009 | 1:17 AM EDT
NewsBuster Tim Graham asked Saturday if comedienne Wanda Sykes, appearing at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, would really make fun of President Barack Obama or go all gentle.
Well, the answer is likely worse than any of us could have imagined, for Sykes used this platform to attack conservatives rather than the person who is historically roasted at this event.
In fact, her only real knocks on Obama were that he's constantly being photographed with his shirt off, and that if he screws up, everybody will blame it on "the half white guy!"
After some respectful and largely complimentary jokes about the President, including how he's really not all that great on the basketball court, Sykes attacked Republicans, conservative pundits, and white people (video part I embedded right, part II below the fold with some lowlights):
By Warner Todd Huston | May 9, 2009 | 11:41 PM EDT
As Tim Graham reported earlier, comedian Wanda Sykes was given the spotlight for the White House Correspondents' Dinner tonight. We wondered if she'd throw a barb or two Obama's way as is customary. All past hosts have spared no opportunity to skewer the current commander in chief and his administration. That is what the thing is for, after all.
Well, even if comedian Sykes did give a lighthearted whack or two to The One, we wouldn't know about it by listening to the ABC Radio news break at the top of the 10PM hour (central). During the radio news break a report was aired on the dinner that featured one of Sykes' jokes.
Was it about Barack? Michelle? Even an Obama staffer? Nope. ABC couldn't find its way clear to air any of those jokes. No, what ABC aired was Sykes' joke about... Dick Cheney. Isn't he out of office?
White House Correspondents Dinner Tonight: Wanda Sykes Will Never Match Stephen Colbert for President-Trashing
By Tim Graham | May 9, 2009 | 7:40 AM EDT 
Barack Obama’s first White House Correspondents’ Dinner is tonight, and the comedian in the roasting job is Wanda Sykes. The burning question: will Sykes really make fun of the president, or go all gentle, since she is a big Obama fan?
By Tim Graham | April 4, 2009 | 7:22 AM EDT
From that quiet and lonely place where comedians consider the rare possibility and danger of making fun of Barack Obama, Amy Chozick of The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Wanda Sykes is trying out some Obama jokes on the road in anticipation of her May comedy gig at the White Hou