Alter ego speaks President's mind

President Bush and stand-in Steve Bridges entertain guests at the correspondents' dinner. Picture / Reuters

President George W. Bush dished out the platitudes at a White House press dinner, but it was his lookalike who cut to the chase.

Mr Bush continued a tradition begun by President Calvin Coolidge in attending the correspondents' dinner at the weekend, and asked impersonator Steve Bridges to play his double .

Bridges stole many of the best lines. Vice-President Dick Cheney and his hunting accident were targets.

"Speaking of suspects, where is the great white hunter?" Bridges said, later adding, "He shot the only trial lawyer in the country who supports me."

The President talked to the press in polite, friendly terms. Bridges told them what the President was really thinking.

Bridges opened like this: "The media really tick me off - the way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say. Well, let's get things going, or I'll never get to bed."

"I'm absolutely delighted to be here, as is [wife] Laura," Mr Bush replied.

"She's hot," Bridges quipped.

The featured entertainer was Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show The Colbert Report lampoons Washington's Establishment.

"I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq," Colbert said in a typical zinger.

He also paid mock tribute to Mr Bush as a man who "believes Wednesday what he believed Monday, despite what happened Tuesday."