# The Taft joke

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Taft joke," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-taft-joke/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The moment at a White House briefing that John Kiriakou offers as the whole difference between the two men at the top of the Bush administration — a self-deprecating crack about William Howard Taft that left the president helpless with laughter and the vice president standing like a statue.*

- **Where:** A briefing at the White House
- **Who made it:** A portly colleague of Kiriakou's, in answer to a presidential joke about his handlebar moustache
- **The line:** *"Actually, I think I've got a William Howard Taft thing going"*
- **[George W. Bush](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/george-w-bush):** Laughed until Kiriakou thought *"water was going to squirt out of his nose"*
- **[Dick Cheney](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/dick-cheney):** *"Just stood there like a statue"*

**The Taft joke** is the scene [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) reaches for when asked what the two men at the top of the Bush administration were actually like in a room. His characterisation comes first: *"Cheney was a mean, cold, sociopathic son of a—. Nothing at all like George W. Bush. Bush was warm and friendly. Not terribly bright, but the nicest guy in the world."*[1]

The demonstration is a briefing he attended with a colleague he describes as *"very portly"* and wearing *"kind of a handlebar mustache."* The president made a joke about the moustache, comparing him to some entertainer whose name Kiriakou no longer recalls, and the man answered with one of his own.[2]

> *"Actually, I think I've got a William Howard Taft thing going."*

Kiriakou glosses the reference for the listener — the stories *"that William Howard Taft got stuck in a bathtub and it took six men to pull him out. It's probably not true, but this is the story in history"* — and then gives the two reactions that are the point of telling it: *"and W laughed to the point where I thought water was going to squirt out of his nose or something. And Cheney just stood there like a statue."*[3][4]

## See also

- [Dick Cheney](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/dick-cheney)
- [George W. Bush](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/george-w-bush)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. London Real (2026-02-15), at 0:31. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXIh90oPCw&t=31s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-15-london-real-london-real/
2. London Real (2026-02-15), at 1:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXIh90oPCw&t=62s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-15-london-real-london-real/
3. London Real (2026-02-15), at 1:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXIh90oPCw&t=94s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-15-london-real-london-real/
4. London Real (2026-02-15), at 2:04. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZXIh90oPCw&t=124s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-02-15-london-real-london-real/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-taft-joke/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt