Hillary Will Be at the Laff Shack All Week

If things don't work out for Hillary with this presidential thing, she can always do stand-up out in LA. Or not. If you didn't catch her side-splitter on last night's Letterman, you can view it here, as rebroadcast on MSNBC this morning.

For those taking nitrates who might not want to risk a sudden drop in blood pressure by watching the clip, here's the text of Hillary's rib tickler:

Dave has been off the air for eight long weeks because of the writers' strike. Tonight he's back. Oh well. All good things come to an end.

Hillary, stop. You're killing me here.

On yesterday's Morning Joe, Tim Russert claimed [view video here] that he never editorializes on Meet the Press. Debatable. But speaking with Hillary communications director Howard Wolfson this morning, Russert not-so-subtly suggested that sending Hillary out to do shtick might not be the best campaign strategy.

He opened his interview with Wolfson by playing the clip of Hillary's stab at humor, then managed to stay deadpan while asking "why do you as a communication person think it's in a candidate's interest to put her on a program like that the night before Iowa?"

Translation: if I had to choose between listening to Hillary do comedy or being waterboarded . . .

Wolfson gamely claimed that "it was fun" and that "I don't think it's going to have an enormous impact on the race." He better hope not.