Did You Hear the One About Jokester President?

President Bush is telling another audience that the Social Security system is in great distress, and there will be ghastly consequences if our leaders don’t act, and act now.

But first, a little joke:

About a guy trying to get to Livingston, Mont. “To get to Livingston, you’ve got to go down the highway,” Bush says during a recent “town meeting” in Great Falls, Mont. “And you go through the cattle guard. And you turn left. And go through another cattle guard.”

Bush chuckles, races through his setup, then hurtles into his punch line.

“And a fellow comes back and says, ‘Hey, what color uniforms do those cattle guards have on?’ ”

Get it? Like, the doofus in the joke thought that “cattle guards” were people (protecting the cows), as opposed to steel rails (placed at fence openings to stop cows from walking onto roads).

The crowd is silent. Bush’s face freezes in a guess-you-had-to-be-there smile.

Laughter comes eventually, in deference to the president’s game effort, if not his joke (showing that it’s possible to hate the joke but love the jokester). There are smiling grimaces and shaking heads, looks of amused disbelief that ask:

Did the Leader of the Free World really just go off on such a goofball digression?

In fact he did, and has been doing so often during otherwise sober discussions on Social Security, energy policy and foreign affairs. Like many politicians, Bush has always used humor as an icebreaker or all-purpose tool of endearment. But he has recently been unleashing (or inflicting) his inner-laugh-riot to a point where he is resembling a Texas auctioneer pitching private accounts on the Borscht Belt.

The other day, Bush began a speech in Columbus, Ohio, by mentioning the international bodybuilding competition that had been held there the previous weekend. “When the vice president heard I was coming, he asked me to pick up an application form for next year’s competition,” the president joked, and what better image to begin a speech on energy policy?

At a town meeting in Little Rock last month, Bush was joined onstage by Gloria Bennett, a part-time food inspector.

“I’m from De Queen, Ark.,” she told the president.

“That,” Bush replied, nodding, “is right next to De King.”

Silence gave way to groans, which became chuckles and, finally, applause. This is Little Rock’s way of saying, “Stop it, Mr. President! You’re killing us!” And then the discussion returned to thrift savings plans.

In a session with European print reporters last month, Bush seemed compelled to tell a German journalist named Klaus, mid-interview, that “my roommate in college, by the way, was named Dieter.”

Klaus replied by asking the president whether he thought that the “trans-Atlantic relationship” would require an “institutional overhaul.”

One benefit of being the commander-in-chief is that people are usually inclined to laugh at your jokes -- especially, in Bush’s case, when your events tend to be presidential amen sessions restricted to ticketed believers. He has proven a serviceable comedian on Washington’s black-tie dinner circuit, and has even been criticized for overdoing it at times (as when he joked about America’s failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq during a dinner last year).

People close to Bush say his recent comic releases reflect a noticeably more relaxed presidential disposition. Since the Iraqi elections in January and his well-received State of the Union speech a few days later, Bush, according to aides, has been much more willing to toss out what-the-heck quips in public, reflecting the attitude of someone who has nothing to lose, or run for.

“He’s been locker-room loose,” said Bush’s longtime ad man, Mark McKinnon.

“There’s no question he’s a slightly different guy,” said Sen. Rick Santorum, the Pennsylvania Republican with close ties to the White House. The president has always had a casual demeanor, Santorum said, and he has been buoyed by recent events. “Success does make you feel a lot more comfortable with who you are.”

If not necessarily funny. But the president, in his own words, has been “feeling pretty spunky” as he barnstorms through town meetings to discuss Social Security. The conversations are marked by teasing banter with his audience.

At North Dakota State University last month, a man told Bush that he was from Velva, N.D., which, he added, “is very close to Karluhe, N.D.”

To which Bush cracked: “That’s good. I was just thinking the same thing myself.”

In Alabama, Bush became giddy when noting that two of his Social Security panelists -- George Wood and his grandson, George Wood Moody -- shared his “GW” initials.

“George Walker Bush, George Wood, George Wood Moody,” the president said, surveying the stage, nodding in revelation. “G.W., W. Thanks for coming.” (W must stand for “wiseguy” in the president’s case.)

Bush often appears with an “expert” who supports his Social Security plan -- some advisor, professor or smarty-pants whom the president likes to use as a foil to contrast with his own academic record. “I’m a C student,” Bush said proudly in Louisville. “He’s the PhD. He’s the advisor. I’m the president. What does that tell you?”

Bush has always liked to project a common-folk demeanor, but only occasionally mentioned his slacker past during his first term. Now his repertoire includes frequent references to how he paid little attention in class while in college.

When a panelist in Tampa, Fla., used the word “multitasking,” Bush, with a hint of sarcasm, commended her for using a “nice long word, ‘multitasking.’ Very good. Inject a little intellectual strength in the conversation.”

Bush has used self-deprecating humor in tense environments, such as during his trip to Europe last month, a delicate diplomatic jaunt. On his arrival in Brussels, Bush spoke of Benjamin Franklin’s visit to Europe two centuries ago. He quoted a writer who said Franklin’s reputation “was more universal than Leibniz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire, and his character more beloved and esteemed than any or all of them. The observer went on to say, ‘There was scarcely a peasant or a citizen who did not consider him as a friend to humankind.’

“I have been hoping for a similar reception. But Secretary [of State Condoleezza] Rice told me I should be a realist.”

The crowd ate this up and the trans-Atlantic ice was cracked slightly, if not thawed.

And Bush demonstrates again that Andrew Card is not the highest-ranking card in this White House. (Get it? That’s a play on the chief of staff’s last name.)

Stop it! Enough already!