This entry was posted on 11/12/2006 8:10 PM and is filed under Election 2006, All Posts.
Kudos to him for having the strength to say no to a sitting president—especially one he was making a good living impersonating. Interesting little anecdote from this week's NYT Magazine profile of Ferrell:
Although Ferrell portrayed Bush as bumbling and not too bright, the impersonation was strangely affectionate, and Bush reportedly loved it. He asked Ferrell to make an appearance with him at the White House Press Corps dinner in 2000, which Ferrell declined.
Bush later made a similar request for a charity event held by Barbara Bush. When Ferrell said no a second time, Bush phoned Jeff Zucker, then the head of NBC, and asked him to persuade Ferrell to perform. "He said, 'You gotta get your guy to do my mom's charity,' " Ferrell recalled, using his Bush accent, over dinner at Kelly and Ping's, a restaurant in downtown Manhattan. "The idea was that Dana Carvey would imitate the dad and I would be the son. And then the two real people would come up behind us, and we'd go, 'Oops, sorry!' That was the whole thing."
"So George the son called Zucker and I was ... busy. In both cases, I especially did not want to do the inevitable photo op afterwards where we are all holding hands. That would have been a gesture of support." Ferrell paused. "I've actually had people say to me, 'Thanks a lot for Bush,' as if I helped him win the election. Luckily, no one has said that in a while. But I can't help the fact that people in America seem to not mind stupidity."
Three times asked, three times declined. Frankly, I'm impressed. I don't know if even I could turn down this president over something as seemingly small as performing at his charity event. But Ferrell appears genuinely disgusted with W.
Personally, I've never been a big fan of Will Ferrell's Bush impersonation, or the current Will Forte at SNL, for that matter. Both of them have focused far, far too much on Bush's supposed stupidity and childlike worldview. In doing so, they inadvertently provided media cover for Bush's true nature: an unparalleled viciousness in his desire to win politically at any cost.
