Offerman: Good evening
They've left a gavel up here for me, it's apparently a stout American white oak
so things get unruly will call this room to order.
Good evening it's a great honor to be here,
my sisters and I look forward to coming to this event every year since march of
2011 Syria...shit.
Excuse me.
Good evening.
And thank you for having me here tonight it really is a great honor and don't
worry I'm being paid significantly less than Jill Abramson to do this job.
I grew up in a small town.
My late grandpa Ray was the mayor of my hometown Minooka, IL.
I come from a line of farmer politicians so it's only natural that I would end up
here speaking to this evening. And the citizens of our town loved my
grandfather.
Whenever he addressed the townspeople he always opened with this joke and I
thought it was appropriate
so I thought I would try to endear myself to you in a similar fashion. A bus
loaded with politicians was driving down a country road when suddenly the bus ran
off the road and straight into old Pete's barn
it's a terrible accident. Old Pete got off his tractor and went to investigate
the carnage which was considerable after some consideration he saw no choice but
to dig a large hole and bury the politicians.
A few days later the local sheriff came out and saw the crash bus and ask old
Pete
what happened to the politicians Pete told him he had buried them. "Well
good lord," the sheriff asked him, "were they all dead?" Old Pete said well some of
them said they weren't but you know you never can trust a politician.
I should apologize by the way if you were expecting my mustache.
I'm with UTA and my mustache is with CAA. It's currently engaged in a Jarritos soda
campaign down at the world cup.
I was very excited when I heard get to meet the White House Chief of Staff,
but it turns out that position has nothing at all to do with stick fighting.
You know a lot more might get done in this town if disputes were settled with
a bo staff. I'm sure you all heard the news about Eric Cantor on Tuesday he
tragically got himself a job at Fox News.
He's the first house majority leader to lose a primary since 1899,
which is also the last time we were at war with Spain
so watch yourself Spain.
Tonight's dinner celebrated Washington DC itself a city with a rich history of
music and art and diplomats getting away with vehicular homicide. Something that
upsets me though about this gorgeous town is that DC residents in fact have
to pay federal income tax despite not having a vote in Congress. We we
literally fought a revolution over that like Massachusetts not letting straight
people get married.
That one requires a little math. Between the Republicans and Democrats the city
has become
let's face it and a noxious stink hole we're very little actually gets done
because of the backstabbing deceit and greed
so I just want to thank all of you for making a Hollywood actor like myself
feel welcome. Right at home.
But Republicans have come around on sex education, I heard they finally decided
to teach fracking and schools. Can I say that on c-span?
Gay marriage is now legal in Pennsylvania in the space of just a few weeks,
they got rid of their anti-gay marriage law, and Michael Vick,
well done PA. With anti-gay marriage laws toppling so easily
I'm starting to worry it's a trap like perhaps the Koch brothers are just
distracting us while they escape on a spaceship.
A giant gay spaceship.
Growing up on a farm family
there were some early lessons and politics. For example in Illinois we
had these tenacious little black beetles indestructible and we often have these
big family picnics that involved
frosty mugs & and draft beer. And these beetles would dive fly straight into
your beer so that if you didn't keep it covered
eventually they would all be in there for the free beer and sincerely these
bugs were known as Democrats. Some people assume because I'm an actor I'm a Democrat.
And other people assume that because I like to hunt and build things I'm a
Republican.
I am neither I am a proud bull moose.
Teddy Roosevelt was a personal hero of mine. He was a man's man with a powerful
mustache, an adventurous spirit, and no patience whatsoever for this sort of
nonsense.
He probably wouldn't be a big fan of this room to be honest the the news
media speaks very loudly and does not own any sticks. But I am proud to live in
a representative democracy.
Congress is almost entirely made up of rich white men just like me.
I appreciate it.
Speaking of them, Comcast and Time warner are about to merge, which I think
is great because NBC is owned by Comcast and I am contractually obligated to
think that.
Comcast and Time Warner Cable were just named the two most hated companies in
America, which is pretty impressive, because GM basically just murdered a bunch of
people and they're not even not even in the top ten.
You could start a company whose entire business model was to set dogs on fire
and then their owners have to pay to put them out and they still wouldn't be as
hated as Time Warner Cable.
According to the Supreme Court corporations are now considered people,
which I think is great because it's always been my dream to punch Time
Warner Cable in the face.
Let's be honest pretty much all of our bosses are evil.
NBC is owned by Comcast, CNN is owned by Time Warner, and Fox is owned by an
Australian supervillain.
Happy trails to Jay Carney,
the messenger we all love to shoot. And after all Jay was - in the
parlance of old racists - one of the good ones.
As you are no doubt aware, Georgia has adopted some new gun legislation
allowing idiots to openly wield a firearm in church,
the post office, bars, movie theaters, the library, etc, but not the state house.
Basically any of the places where people are prone to get excited or well go
postal,
except for the lawmakers own place of employment. But uh if you live in Georgia
rest assured you'll never need to back down again when wrestling another reader
for the last copy of wind in the willows.
What's that you're out of the Elvis forever stamps? How about now?
The Second Amendment protects our right to own guns specifically so that we can
defend our country from invading armies or from our own federal government
should a king end up taking over things and trying to make things more royal
around here.
The second amendment is not there to protect our right to intimidate the
teenage cashier at chipotle.
I feel like we as a country -
present company included - are a little unclear
these days about the first ten amendments so it's all right with you
I'm gonna run us through a brief Bill of Rights refresher course.
The First Amendment for example guarantees freedom of speech, but freedom
of speech does not mean freedom from criticism. That confusion is just one of
the many things that Fox News and Donald Sterling have in common
just because the government can't punish you for saying something stupid
doesn't mean the rest of us can't. And we will. We as a country enjoy punishing
people for saying stupid things. That, fireworks, and the missionary position are
basically the three most American things I can think of. The first amendment also
ensures us the freedom of religion and for anybody out there claiming that
America was in any way founded as a Christian nation
just stop it. It's nonsense. Just look at the Bill of Rights itself, it's a
meticulously worded and signed legal contract. If anything this is proof that
America was founded as a Jewish country.
Come on.
I'm, I'm a firm believer in the Second Amendment. In fact I consider myself to
be a second amendment originalist.
That means I believe every man or woman has the right to bear arms, but only
these the same arms that our country's forefathers bore in the 18th century,
muskets. I'm talking black powder, muzzle loaded smoothbore guns fashioned with a
bayonet. And then, only as a last resort, if you have a beef with me I am going to
expect you to try and resolve it using reasonable discourse using your words
and civility.
Now if our tempers are flared past the point of civil discourse, then I expect
you to challenge me in an honorable contest of fisticuffs like a grown adult.
But to remove oneself to the safe range of a firearm to settle a dispute in
America is nothing short of cowardly. Add the ease of automatic firing capability
and I will declare you nothing short of lily livered. For shame,
it's hard for a man to shoot you when you're shaking his hand. Now a bunch of
nincompoops in Texas thought it would be a good idea to bring shotguns into a
Chili's to prove some sort of point, but all it did was remind everybody how
fucked up it is that you're allowed to bring shotguns into a family restaurant
in Texas. Chili's responded by banning guns because by God if you're gonna shit your
pants in a chilis it's going to be because of the food.
By God.
The third amendment says that soldiers aren't allowed to come and sleep in your
house if you don't want them to. This is a good amendment.
I don't feel like there's a lot of confusion about this one.
However reasonable this is the only amendment that could easily be swapped
into the terms of service of Airbnb, however. The Fourth Amendment
we seem to have forgotten about all together. Did someone at the NSA actually
spill barbecue sauce on this one because it doesn't say some unreasonable
search and seizure. When the closest analogue to our government's behavior
is Billy Baldwin in the movie Sliver,
something has gone terribly wrong.
The Fifth Amendment is mostly for people to invoke during the second half of Law
and Order.
Basically five through seven or just things for people to yell during jury
shows or lawyer shows. For example the sixth amendment sets up the founding
principles of jury duty,
so at this point I think if most people had to choose between jury duty and
letting a soldier crash on your couch
we would choose the latter.
The Eighth Amendment protects us from cruel and unusual punishment, which
apparently does not include strapping a citizen to a table and murdering them.
I guess that's some sort of judgment call. The rest of the civilized world has
stopped practicing capital punishment,
meanwhile officials in Oklahoma are now making lethal injections the way I make
a barbecue rub.
"Oh, we don't have sodium thiopental, screw it, just throw some cumin in there and some
crushed rock salt
that ought to do the trick." The ninth and tenth amendments are really just there
to make sure people don't get cute with all the other ones. Like in movies when
somebody looks in the rule book and says, "well there's nothing in here that says a
chimp can't play baseball."
Well those two amendments are there to make sure that a
chimp doesn't get to play baseball
just because no one thought to explicitly forbid chimps from playing
baseball.
Let's try a little harder from here on out, shall we?
You can't just pretend that the Constitution says whatever you wanted to
say--
that's what the Bible, expiration dates, and speed limit signs are for.
Thank you very much for having me, I appreciate it.
[Applause]