Little to head WHCA’s big night

He does a mean Ronald Reagan impersonation and his imitation of Richard Nixon is legendary. In fact, Canadian comedian and impersonator Rich Little can do impersonations of everyone from Miss Piggy to Henry Kissinger, Arnold Schwarzenegger to Elvis Presley.

And on April 21, Little will be able to show off his impersonation of George W. Bush to the commander in chief himself. Little has been tapped by the White House Correspondents Association to be the featured entertainer at its annual dinner, one of the biggest nights each year for official Washington.

Washingtonians will be able to relive a bit of history when Little comes to town, as he can do impersonations of every U.S. president since John F. Kennedy. Little has been a television staple since the 1970s, making countless appearances on variety shows featuring Ed Sullivan, Jackie Gleason and Dean Martin. He guest-hosted the “Tonight Show” 12 times and is a regular performer in Las Vegas, where he lives.

When Little performs in April, lots of people will be looking to see how his performance compares to last year’s performer, Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, whose routine earned praised in some circles (it was one of the most downloaded video clips in all of 2006) and derision in others (some thought Colbert was either not funny or unnecessarily insulting to the president).

C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said that this year, he wanted to pick someone who hadn’t previously headlined the event. The possibility of selecting Little dawned on him in November when watching Little do impersonations on “The Late Show with David Letterman.”

“I think his brand of humor will be perfect for the night,” Scully told Yeas & Nays, adding that the White House was also “thrilled” when he informed them of Little’s selection.

Happy birthday, donkey!

Although traces of the donkey being used as a Democratic symbol go back as far as 1828, the man who gets the most credit for bringing the symbol into the mainstream is political cartoonist Thomas Nast, who featured the donkey in a cartoon for Harper’s Weekly on this week, way back in 1870.

Nine Democratic presidents later, the donkey is still alive and kickin’, but is it still fashionable?

Democratic consultant Jack Quinn sure thinks so.

“The donkey continues to be an apt symbol of the Democratic Party, having its origins in Andrew Jackson’s unshakable (some thought stubborn) commitment to populist policy that put the people before the special interests,” he said. “Interestingly, Nast used it in 1870 in particular reference to an anti-war faction of the Party, but he soon came to use it to refer more broadly to the Party and its journalistic sympathizers.”

Show me the money, presidential candidates

Forget the pundits and talking heads: If you want to find out who’s going to win in 2008, follow the money.

According to TradeSports.com, an online trading and betting exchange (using real money), Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y. looks to take the White House in 2008. Shares of her stock closed at $22.70. In second place is Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., ($19), followed by Rudy Giuliani ($10.40), John Edwards ($10) and Mitt Romney ($9.4) and Sen. Barack Obama ($8.60).

Figure skater Michelle Kwan heads to China

Could this pair become as legendary as Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov? (If you don’t know them, look it up: We did.)

Accompanying Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Karen P. Hughes on her trip to China today is none other than figure skating champion Michelle Kwan, whose parents are Chinese immigrants.

But Hughes isn’t bringing Kwan along simply to teach her a thing or two about how to smoothly navigate icy situations: Kwan was named a public diplomacy ambassador in November by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Hughes told Yeas & Nays that she’s looking forward to the trip. “Michelle represents the best of America,” Hughes said. “With her family’s ties to China and China’s hosting of the 2008 Olympics, travelling with Michelle to China is a wonderful way to demonstrate our friendship and respect.”

Here’s hoping that the trip goes better than Kwan’s career, which — although successful — failed to ever net Olympic Gold.

A ‘Little Prairie’ spin-off

Columnist Mark Steyn might be a good writer — conservatives are raving about his new book, “America Alone” — but what does he know about television?

At The Heritage Foundation last week, Steyn criticized a new sitcom — “Little Mosque on the Prairie” — which premiered last week on the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. The comedy focuses on a fictional Muslim family living in rural Saskatchewan and how the town reacts to these new neighbors.

“And what is the core joke of the show?” Steyn asked. “It’s that the white folks in that town are just dumb, ignorant rednecks who are stupid enough to think that every Muslim is an extremist and a terrorist. And the Muslims function like gay characters do on American sitcoms.”

As the crowd laughed, Steyn smiled and said, “That’s off the record.” But, at a public event being streamed live over the Internet and later captured unedited in MP3 format on Heritage’s Web site, off-the-record requests don’t cut it.

Steyn elaborated: “Muslim is the new gay in the sense that, the gays, if you watch a sitcom here ... the principles are neurotic ... and the witty, brittle, gay guy says all the charming, amusing, sophisticated things.”

Hady Amr, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who focuses on U.S. relations with the Islamic world, called Steyn’s comments “inappropriate.”

“American Muslims are taking their rightful place at the political table,” Amr said, “and America needs to come to terms with that in terms of its rhetoric.”

Speakeasy

“Some of it is the language of Texas, and I mean that in a very loving way.”

– former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, explaining to C-SPAN why President Bush has had difficulty crafting a “humble foreign policy.”