Wait, wait, Senate committee

I heart Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me ... and caught it this morning on my way to the library. It felt so good to be hooting with laughter, alone in my van. Someday I would love to catch a live taping of this show at the Chase Bank Auditorium in downtown Chicago.

The giggles started when the day's guest was announced, the actor Ice-T who stars on the NBC show Law & Order: SVU. Peter Sagal, the host, said he wanted to pitch his idea for a spin-off series, Law & Order: NPR. I know the humor doesn't translate as well in this blog format, but truly, the words as they come out of his mouth are like comedy gold. That made me laugh so loudly I couldn't keep quiet, especially not when he shared the show's concept: "we solve crimes and then encourage the still traumatized but grateful victims to pledge at any level. Cause that's when they're vulnerable."

I laughed so hard at the next part (see below) that I decided to transcribe the funniest bits to share.
It's still making me laugh, the opening segment of Who's Carl This Time?, a game on the show where the call-in listener has to identify who or what Mr. Kasell is talking about.

Karl says (in a pretending-to-be-a-woman voice): "The hearings are a vapid and hollow charade in which repetition of platitudes has replaced discussion of viewpoint."

Peter adds: "Well, she's going to have to pretend to like them NOW."

The answer is, of course, Elena Kagan, and the listener gets it right.

Peter continues: "To summarize the coverage of President Obama's new Supreme Court nominee ... she is a centrist, leftist, radical compromiser who everybody loves and nobody knows, an All-American out-of-touch elitist, a right-handed southpaw, asexual lesbian heterosexual whose personal life is a complete mystery, so we expect her to be both easily confirmed and burned as a witch."

Paula Poundstone (panelist on show) and I both break into guffaws. (You can hear it yourself here, the Paula Poundstone part, at least.) Peter says, "They'll do it at the same hearing, just to save time."

Another woman parking her car in front of the library looked over at me. The window was down, the laughs were audible. This was perhaps the funniest thing I've heard all day. (Of course, when I came home and loaded up an episode of Glee on hulu.com to play while I was putting away groceries, I heard some more funnies.)

Peter tosses in, "Some say that picking an Ivy League, even-tempered compromiser, Obama  basically tried to nominate himself...."

The jokes continue. Peter says something hilarious about a picture of Ms. Kagan playing softball found in a University of Chicago yearbook.  These guys are so good they make me proud to call myself an American.

Big smile.