Howard Dean's "sens de l'humour".

Last week, Howard Dean showed once again that he had a great sense of humor when he addressed the Canadian Liberal Leadership Convention in Montreal. (I almost missed it on this blog)

He started in English but then spoke French, as you can hear on the video below. His speaking French (in the mostly bilingual city of Montreal) caused cheers and applause by an excited crowd. How often do American politicians show so much effort? (Rumor has it that he was actually practicing in the afternoon.)

Taking the opportunity of the interruption of the crowd, he had a great line in English:

“Parce que je crois, à la lumière des résultats de cette élection, que nous… [Because I believe in the light of these election results that we….] (….cheers and applause…) Won’t Fox News hate this !” (in English)

This of course refers to his speaking French, the dreaded language that drives the FoxNews people crazy (Bill O’Reilly, and his boycott of French products…. and his fellow conservative pundits who love French-bashing, as much as Canadian-bashing)

Dean also showed a good sense of self-derision:

“Je me sens privilégié, je suis hautement honoré d’être ici, parmi vous, ce soir. [I feel so fortunate, I feel extremely honored of being here with you tonight]

En fait, je suis si heureux que je pourrais crier. Mais rassurez-vous je ne le ferai pas. Mais je le pourrais. [(In fact I’m so happy that I could scream. But don’t worry, I will not do that. But I could.]

Let me say I learned my lesson the hard way. (in English)