You get the tone of Liz Carpenter’s “Presidential Humor” when you see the Mt. Rushmore cartoon on the cover: Abraham Lincoln is holding up two fingers behind George Washington’s head.
“I think the book is going to do well, and the fact that I brought it out at age 86 is a matter of pride,” says Carpenter, who was Lady Bird Johnson’s press secretary. She points out that she can come up with presidential jokes because she has been around so many of them over the years as a reporter and a White House staffer.
“I’ve known 12 presidents, and I think that’s some kind of record,” says Carpenter, who gets around on a little red scooter these days, lives in Austin and still has a sense of humor and a hot tub.
“It fits eight Democrats — or six Republicans — because they don’t want to sit as close together,” she says.
Carpenter’s little book is full of remarks told by presidents who were at least attempting to be funny.
From reading “Presidential Humor” you get the idea that most American presidents wouldn’t have landed a spot on Comedy Central. “Nearly all of them tried to have at least one laugh line, and some of them you had to strain to use the word `laugh,”‘ Carpenter admits.
“The French philosopher-politician Voltaire was asked if he ever used humor in his speeches,” the book tells us. He replied, “`No, I never make ha-ha.’ Yet most American presidents have at least one or more `funnies’ to their credit.”
Whether you could classify these jokes as making actual ha-ha is a matter of debate. For example, according to the book, Ronald Reagan once said, “Before I refuse to take your questions, I have an opening statement.” Which is better than most of the material in this book.
The funniest president of them all? John F. Kennedy, Carpenter says, but what else is a yellow dog Democrat going to say? “He was from that rollicking family in Massachusetts,” Carpenter explains. “I can’t remember how many kids there were. I think there were 13 of ’em. But they were telling jokes all the time.” (There were nine kids, actually.)
The dour Richard Nixon wasn’t as humorless as you’d expect. In the book, Carpenter points out that Nixon said there was one line from Kennedy’s inauguration speech he wished he’d said himself. When asked if it was “Ask not what your country can do for you,” he said no — he preferred “I do solemnly swear.”
Then there was Calvin Coolidge. “It’s amazing that Coolidge gets quoted so much,” Carpenter says. He didn’t say much, but what he said was choice. There was, for instance, the lady in the receiving line who told Coolidge she came from Boston. “Yes, and you’ll never get over it,” he replied.
By the way, Carpenter says that Lyndon Johnson told off-color jokes. But, sadly, she didn’t get to hear them. “He wouldn’t do it in front of women very much,” she said. “But you’d hear some guffawing in the next room.”
Which is more than you could say about Thomas Jefferson. Pity.