IRREVERENT News

SAUDI ARABIA - During a 10 minute standup bit in Riyadh today, only one guy got Secretary of State Clinton's Lady Gaga joke.

During her 10 minute standup routine, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton often brought tears to the eyes of dignitaries from sultans to business tycoons. Today, however, only a lone staffer got her new "Lady Gaga" joke.

"So I'm looking over this crowd yesterday in Qatar," Secretary Clinton started, "and there's this guy in the front row, one of the generals hanging around the place. And all I kept thinking is: is this guy Lady Gaga or what? I mean cross your legs, general, that's one deployment nobody wants to see!"

The room, except for staffer Leslie Graham, was dead silent. Central Command General James "Buck" Shaffer, the target of the joke who does bear a slight likeness to the pop-icon (right), is a relatively unknown figure who the Secretary had met only days before.

The gathered dignitaries, sensing her new material was not nearly as good as her old, well-worn bits, eventually laughed politely. A few coughed.

"I thought her stuff on eating tofu outside Port-Au-Prince was the best of the new bits," said Muhammed al-Keblahm, a senior Saudi diplomat and regular at Secretary Clinton's shows. "Overall, I think she did well for a woman. Riyadh is a tough crowd. Just last week we tried to decapitate Carrot Top outside the Royal Hyatt Ballroom, but those damn novelty props tripped us up."

"I've been on the Secretary's staff now for almost a year and I gotta say today she was really on her mark," said Graham. "Normally she does her act after drinks, but you know it's dry in the middle-east, so it was after a round of strawberry juice. I just don't think the crowd was warmed up enough. I've been suggesting for weeks now that we fire Staff Sergeant Rickles. He just sucks unless you've already got a tank of scotch in you. Nobody wants to listen to 15 minutes of banjo music in a room full of sheiks. Plus he's Jewish, which really doesn't help."