How To Frisk A Pretzel

By Harriet Barovic

President Bush's fainting episode, caused by a pretzel, appeared to have little medical significance. But it was a major event for at least one constituency: late-night talk-show hosts. Here, at last, was a terrorism-free gaffe they could make fun of--which they did, endlessly. The Tonight Show's Jay Leno, who joked about Bush's deciding "which game he's going to pass out watching," tells TIME the mishap was "a gem" because it didn't require "mocking his ability to govern...but was just a light human foible." Indeed, Bush got relatively gentle treatment: most of the jokes were at the expense of others, like Dick Cheney, or the pretzel itself. "The reality is, going hard at Bush now wouldn't go over very well," says David Javerbaum, a writer for Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Craig Kilborn, star of CBS's Late Late Show, deadpanned that the Secret Service wrestled the pretzel to the ground, but he continues to bar jokes at Bush's expense. The pretzel debacle didn't change his mind. "I think this story will become funnier," he says, "when Dan Quayle spells pretzel with an e at the end."

--By Harriet Barovick