Opinion: That comedian looks awfully familiar

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So this senator walks into a Washington bar and, well, no, actually it’s a comedy club. But he walks in and starts doing a stand-up routine. And pretty soon this old guy has got the Capitol crowd in stitches.

So did you hear what happened to Trent Lott’s library? It got ruined by Hurricane Katrina -- both books. And he hadn’t even finished coloring one of them.

You know, Ted Kennedy hasn’t been to the Senate gym since the Johnson administration -- the Andrew Johnson administration.

Misspelling ‘potato’ wasn’t Dan Quayle’s worst mistake. He always thought harass was two words.

So Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden are talking in the Senate cloakroom when a vicious argument breaks out. Biden says he had a funny dream last night. He dreamt that he was talking to God and He said he wanted him to get the Democratic nomination for president. Obama says, that’s nothing. Because I had the same dream and He told me I would not only get the nomination, I’d win the presidency.

Then Clinton pipes up. I had the same dream, Hillary says, but I don’t remember talking to either one of you.

Believe it or not, this and a whole lot more, not all of it suitable for a newspaper blog, came out of the mouth of the seemingly-serious Sen. Arlen Specter, the craggy-faced, 77-year-old maverick veteran from Pennsylvania, who recently had a stand-up gig at a District of Columbia comedy club.

He seemed to love it. He got some suggestions from his staff, wrote down some stories he knew from years of public speaking and did about two hours’ practice for his 10-minute routine. He divided the jokes up into Clean, Questionable and Highly Questionable. He started with the Clean stuff and figured he’d run out of time before he got to Highly Questionable. Not quite.

You can see his entire routine here, including the Viagra and paraplegic jokes.

But first, did you hear what Moses said when he came down from his mountaintop meeting with God? He said, ‘The good news is, I got Him down to 10. The bad news is, adultery is still in there.’

--Andrew Malcolm