US Republicans applaud off-color 'Obama' skit

[Vi-Jay 218]

Source

US Republicans applaud off-color 'Obama' skit

by Olivier Knox Olivier Knox – Sat Jun 18, 5:37 pm ET

NEW ORLEANS (AFP) – A President Barack Obama impersonator won cheers and laughter Saturday at a gathering of Republican activists with an often off-color routine that mocked the real Obama's mixed-race parentage.

Actor Reggie Brown's routine to the Republican Leadership Conference here drew groans and was ultimately cut short after he savaged the crowded field Republican of candidates eager to deny Obama a second term.

The comic noted that Obama's father was from Kenya and his mother was a white woman from Kansas and said "my mother loved a black man, and no she was not a Kardashian" -- a reference to a popular reality show family.

Khloe Kardashian is married to professional basketball player Lamar Odom, while sister Kim vaulted to notoriety with the release of a sex tape starring her and singer Ray J.

Brown, as Obama, also joked to a packed crowd in a hotel ballroom that while First Lady Michelle Obama celebrates all of Black History Month, "I celebrate half."

The comic imagined the Obamas aged by White House pressures, and used the ballroom's giant television screens to show a photograph of African-American television sitcom junk dealer "Fred Sanford" and his wife.

He also showed risque photographs at the core of the "sexting" scandal that cost Democrat Anthony Weiner his House of Representatives seat -- including one of him clad in a towel and another that was a close-up of his underwear.

The actor also joked that he was dropping the "Yes We Can" slogan of his historic 2008 presidential run and embracing a new one, "I killed Osama," as the big screen television showed a portrait of him in a Superman-style pose.

The actor, whose first appearance pulled the cheering and laughing crowd to its feet, ran through a litany of jokes poking fun at the president and his policies as well as debunked claims that he was not a natural-born US citizen.

"Obama," preceded on stage by fake US Secret Service agents, quipped that he had recently vacationed "in the state of my birth, Hawaii -- or as the Tea Partiers still call it, Kenya."

He asked the crowd to change the crowded ballroom to "the pre-1967 seat arrangement" -- a joke about Obama's recent call for Israel to adopt pre-1967 borders, which has drawn heavy fire from US conservatives.

The actor talked about Obama's dog Bo and said that the presidential mansion had a dog house, adding "from what I'm told Bill Clinton slept in it a lot" -- a play on a slang term referring to husbands in trouble with their wives.

Brown delivered a searing joke about infrastructure spending in Obama's 2009 economic stimulus package, quipping that people needed tunnels and bridges to have "something to live under or jump off off" in the sour US economy.

He also joked that Republican House Speaker John Boehner, who is known for perpetually looking tan and for getting easily emotional, should hold his tears because "spray tans are not cheap."

Brown took aim at the religion of the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, saying that if elected Romney would have "his first lady, second lady, third lady" -- even though the mainstream Mormon church formally abandoned polygamy in the late 19th century.

The actor made fun of Romney rival Newt Gingrich, whose top presidential campaign aides recently mass resigned, joking "his consultants are dropping faster than Anthony Weiner's pants in an AOL chatroom."

At least one prominent Republican, former Republican National Committee spokesman Doug Heye, immediately expressed dismay with Brown's routine.

"Wonder why many minorities have problems with GOP? Hiring Obama impersonator to tell 'black jokes' at SRLC, for starters. Our own fault," he said in his Twitter feed.

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So so stupid.

[peejay 327]

The Houston Chronicle had a completely different take on the event.

Fake Obama soars, then bombs, at GOP event

By JOE HOLLEY

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

June 18, 2011, 10:00PM

NEW ORLEANS — President Barack Obama impersonator Reggie Brown was good - maybe too good, in fact.

Introduced to the crowd of conservative activists at the Republican Leadership Conference as comic relief to an afternoon of political speechifying, Brown had the tone and intonation of the president down pat and looked eerily like him as well.

At first, he had the crowd laughing with jibes at the president that included a remark about how February was his favorite month because it was Black History Month. "Michelle, she celebrates the whole month, and I celebrate half," Brown said.

Noting that his mother was from Kansas and his father from Kenya, Brown said, "My mother loved a black man and, no, she was not a Kardashian," alluding to the reality-TV family. Khloe Kardashian, who's white, is married to black basketball player Lamar Odom of the Los Angeles Lakers. Her sister Kim had a long-term relationship with another black athlete, football star Reggie Bush.

"We need to build tunnels and bridges," the faux president said. "That way people will have something to live under or something to jump off of."

The laughter turned to puzzlement and scattered boos, when Brown began targeting Republicans. Noting the mass resignation of Newt Gingrich advisers, Brown said that Gingrich supporters "are dropping faster than Anthony Weiner's pants in an AOL chatroom."

A picture of George Washington after the rigors of his presidency was actually a picture of former first lady Barbara Bush in a Washington-style wig. When he began making jibes at Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachmann, the music came up, the microphone went off and the program moderator escorted Brown off the stage.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/politics/7616598.html

[Vi-Jay 218]

I think the GOP and the comedian should take heat on this.

[_Simpson_ 250]

Nothing here to be upset about, time to move on.

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