Donna Brazile at KU: Women should be more ambitious and run for office

Donna Brazile, who might be the smartest woman on cable news, or on all of TV, or maybe in the whole country, paid a visit to the University of Kansas last night to give a speech titled “Women in American Politics: Are We There Yet?” Most of her prepared remarks were canned “women have come a long way but we have farther to go” sentiments reheated for the capacity crowd who’d filled the student union’s Woodruff Auditorium to hear the CNN commentator, Al Gore presidential campaign manager and author of Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics talk on themes related to Women’s History Month.

Fortunately, she spent most of her time off script. She’d clearly told a lot of her jokes before — hence the perfect comedy timing followed by the chin-to-chest, eyebrow-raised, searing-eyed “you know what I’m talking about” expression. But the humor was welcome nonetheless, especially in these dreary times.

“In Washington right now, people are complaining that President Obama is working too hard! He’s working so hard that Congress has to work harder!” she said. “Students are getting ready to go on spring break, but Congress has been on spring break for eight years!” That got a big laugh, as did her description of herself as “a cable call girl with Anderson as my boo.” And her observation that Democrats had no need to interfere when Republicans and Rush Limbaugh were their own “circular firing squad.”

But she had some hard words for the women in the room, too.