My friends are organizing a "Burns Night" supper (late, for next weekend) at which we will drink whiskey, eat haggis and other traditional Scottish foods, and dance -- they even have a piper this year to pie in the haggis.
Another part of the dinner is toasting the various elements of life. There is one to the lads (given by a woman) and one to the lassies (by a man). And one to the Queen. We, being American and not so much subject to her majesty, have traditionally made the toast to the President. I am potentially going to be the one to give the toast. And I need some help!
These are humorous toasts, but can be biting in the satire sort of way, but should not be simply viscious. I will be in a group that overwhelmingly (if not exclusively) voted Democratic in the last several elections, so it will be a friendly group (to me, not him). But I am generally not the funniest person (and I have difficulty seeing humour in the mess he has made of the country).
Steven Colbert's talk at the dinner last year was impossible to top. But that kind of disrespect cloaked in respect is what I would ideally like to manage (tall order!). It will be a maximum of 200 words, and preferably 150 or so.
Do you folks have any suggestions as to what I could talk about? Is there anything that one could say positive about him so that it would make the disasters he has caused look even worse by comparison? As in, he fed his dog (but didn't feed the world). But I don't want to be heavy-handed or obvious either. The group is pretty sophisticated so they will get Colbert-level humour.
The only thing I can come up with is that this president has lowered the bar so much that Warren Harding is really looking good by comparison. Or maybe that his disastrous presidency has led us to recapture the houses of congress, something that looked impossible six years ago. Or maybe that the next president will automatically look great by comparison.
Please help me!