Bush plays the joker in warm-up for Congress speech

By Michael Gawenda, Washington
January 31, 2006


THREE days before his State of the Union speech, President George Bush did a warm-up gig at the annual Alfalfa Club dinner in Washington.

You haven't heard of the Alfalfa Club? Neither have most Americans. Founded in 1913 by a group of wealthy local residents, it apparently exists for the sole purpose of holding an annual banquet to honour the Confederate Civil War General Robert E. Lee.

Over the decades it has become a highlight of the Washington social calendar, an event where the president polishes his oratorical skills on the eve of the address to a joint sitting of Congress.

Although the dinner, attended by movers and shakers and what pass for celebrities in Washington — domestic guru Martha Stewart was there, for instance — is closed to the media, copies of Mr Bush's speech are circulating in the capital.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/bush-plays-the-joker-in-warmup-for-congress-speech/2006/01/30/1138590441186.html

he needs some new writers very quickly