Within the Beltway, the "Silly Season" is confined to the first three months of the year, when the Gridiron Club, the White House Correspondents' Dinner and the Alfalfa Club (a group of Washington insiders) ask important politicians, including the president, to deliver funny speeches. Clinton's designated joke writer was Katz, who wrote Clinton's speeches for these affairs as well as speeches for Al Gore and Madeleine Albright. Katz found his comedy writer niche after considerable experience as a class clown; after graduating from Cornell, he successfully dodged what he calls the "Vietnam of [his] generation" an L.A. Law
–inspired courtroom career. In 1988 Katz entered politics as a member of Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign staff. His description of writing for this "pathologically unfunny" man is a comic delight. Katz made a brief foray into advertising, but then, thanks to relationships with Dee Dee Myers and George Stephanopoulos, former Dukakis staffers then in the Clinton White House, Katz landed a spot writing for POTUS through the notably unfunny Contract for America, Whitewater and Monica episodes. It is humor that Katz cares passionately about, not politics. As he says, "I like Al Gore. Comedy meant a lot to him and that meant a lot to me." He sends his jokes, hundreds of which are included here, into the world with the same pride, and angst, that parents feel when sending their children off to college. This quality is endearing and softens the rougher edges of his humor, which often involves the odd juxtaposition of self-deprecation and self-aggrandizement. Happily, he is often very laugh-out-loud funny. (Feb.)
