A heckler interrupted President George Bush as he began his annual speech to the White House Correspondents' Association dinner with an anecdote about cows.
"Not that old joke, not again," the interrupter cried, gesturing to the president to sit down. He obeyed.
The heckler was his wife, Laura Bush. "I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there," said the first lady. "I've got a few things I want to say for a change." The president was usually in bed at this time, she said, and she had told him recently: "If you really want to end tyranny in the world, you're going to have to stay up later."
The audience of media people and celebrity guests roared as Mrs Bush went on to describe a typical evening in the White House: "Nine o'clock, Mr Excitement here is sound asleep and I'm watching Desperate Housewives," she said referring to the hit ABC series. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm a desperate housewife."
The dinner on Saturday night was attended by several Hollywood stars including Goldie Hawn, Richard Gere, Jane Fonda and Mary Tyler Moore.
As usual the dinner, in the Washington Hilton, brought together the top members of the administration and some of its most severe critics in what has come to look like Washington's version of an Oscars ceremony.
Vice-President Dick Cheney and his wife Lyn and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mingled with such figures as comedian Bill Maher, who said: "Everybody here from the government should get back to work."
The event underscored the value to the administration of Mrs Bush, a former librarian who has emerged from the shadow of her husband to become one of the most popular first ladies of recent times.