Was Imus Out of Line or Just Doing His Duty?

Deejay Don Imus does a scorched-earth comedy routine at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents dinner--prickling the president of the United States about alleged womanizing as the commander in chief looks on--and Washington sputters about an allegedly shocking breach of protocol.

Is it really a terminal case of bad taste? After all, Imus was invited and says far worse on his radio program. Or has the nation’s capital lost its sense of humor?

Such were the questions put to a panel of humorists and political handlers assembled in the National Press Club’s Grand Ball Room Monday night as C-SPAN fed the event live into America’s living rooms. The panelists pondered, then went ahead and singed a little earth of their own for good ratings. It was a Comedy Central-sponsored event after all.

“Let me just review,” said panelist and Emmy-award winning comedy writer Al Franken. “[U.S. Sen. Bob] Dole’s old. Dole’s extremely old.”

“Why is that funny?” inquired co-panelist Tony Blankley, press aide to House Speaker Newt Gingrich, making a pretense at serious colloquy.

“You know how old he is, Tony?” interjected “Politically Incorrect” host Bill Maher. “When he won California, he declared it for Spain.”

Former Clinton press aide Dee Dee Myers launched into a long, involved question for Franken about the evolution of humor as perhaps witnessed by Franken after years of writing material for “Saturday Night Live.”

The bespectacled Franken blinked.

“I haven’t been listening. I’m sorry.”

Even panelist and GOP strategist Roger Stone weighed in.

“Everybody’s trying to be politically correct. Pat Buchanan says, ‘There’s just no room in my campaign for racists or anti-Semites.’ Of course not, those positions were filled months ago.”

With “60 Minutes” correspondent Morley Safer acting as a moderator of sorts, the panel wandered into the issue of “the Lie” as a political necessity.

The most candid moment of the evening came when Safer suddenly asked Myers whether press secretaries ever tell an untruth and she quite literally choked and sputtered, unable to answer.

“Bob Dornan never lies,” Franken said of the GOP congressman from Garden Grove and bottom-rung presidential candidate.

“Exactly,” Maher said. “It’s the guys who get 1% in the polls who are the ones who never lie.”

“Also, he’s crazy,” Franken said.

One question about humor from the audience: “I was wondering if Chelsea Clinton is really off limits?”

Maher: “Not in a couple of years she won’t be.”

The discussion navigated back and forth through Imus waters with Blankley marveling over the stir generated by that evening. He faintly suggested hypocrisy is at work by musing how Mad Cow-infected English beef must have been the dinner entree.

“[People were] wandering around, frothing and falling on their bottoms,” he said.

But did Imus cross that famous line everybody is always talking about? Safer kept asking.

“There is a line,” said Maher, his voice actually raised in what seemed indignation. “I would not, in front of the president, make a joke about his infidelity, with his wife sitting there.”

A decidedly Washington audience applauded.

Of course, when Maher drew the Imus spot at last year’s Radio and Television affair, he used the “f-word” in front of the first couple and joked about deporting Sen. Phil Gramm’s Korean American wife. That little line sure does move around.

Near the end of the evening, Maher offered a kind of conclusion to the discussion. Something about good jokes being the only way of getting to the truth about people.

OK.

“Personalities aside,” asked one woman from the audience, “are there any funny issues?”

At last, a serious answer?

“Yeah, AIDS, always,” Franken said. “Genocide. Always a crowd pleaser. . . .”