Ellen DeGeneres lets Bill Clinton live

Former President Bill Clinton dropped by the Ellen DeGeneres show last Tuesday for a softball interview about charity work and general world-saving.

In one of those TV moments that ought to be on the show's permanent highlight reel, the former president was discussing the television shows he likes to watch and Ellen asked him if he had watched "Dancing With the Stars."

President Clinton responded that he had not watched it, but said he wanted to watch it just to see Emmitt Smith dance. "I'm always interested in people who can multi-task," the former president said.

A wave of laughter went through the audience and there was a moment, caught by the director, when Ellen DeGeneres smiled the smile of the comedian who has the joke and is waiting to unleash it.

"Yeah, well, you certainly do that," she said, and then rushed ahead to begin the next bit, a trivia quiz, changing the subject in a manner that stopped the audience from laughing. She chose to let Bill Clinton live. She could have left him hanging there for a laugh that might have challenged the record set by Ed Ames and his tomahawk on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

See the clip here on YouTube.com (at this link, it's about 8:50 into a clip that runs 9:54).

While Ellen is reading the intro to the trivia quiz, you can read the former president's face as he realizes he walked right into a comedian's den and got out with his life. He even rolls his eyes in the universal gesture of "Whew!"

Another great escape.



Copyright 2006

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