Wednesday night, the Funniest Celebrity in Washington contest went underway, and all of Washington's most famous celebrities people who are sometimes on C-SPAN competed to prove they are the funniest least boring person in Washington. The big winner of the night was Austan Goolsbee, an economist for the Obama administration. There's video of him yucking it up after the jump, but first Joe Wurzelbacher, better known as Joe the Plumber of New Lows (don't quit my day job, me), also performed stand-up! And there's video!

I'm not saying Joe's material is awful. I am just saying, as a plumber, shouldn't he be cleaning up shit rather than performing it?

ZZZZZZZZZZZ…

Just kidding. He did a decent job. I mean, he took a really long time getting to that first joke. There's no reason to move at a glacial pace, Goolsbee. This isn't an episode of Mad Men. By the time he was done setting up the first joke, I thought Sarah Palin had already become the first president to have her term filmed for a VH1 reality show.

Or as Matt Tobey said over AIM, "He's taking longer to get to the joke than Obama is taking to fix the economy!!!!!!!" Either way, congrats on winning, Austan Goolsbee!

One last note about Goolsbee. In political circles, he is often called the Master of the One-Liner. On the one hand, that reputation probably helped his chances of winning. On the other hand, politicians usually are painfully unfunny, so that's kind of like being the highest jumper at the People Who Aren't Very Good at Jumping convention. Or being the best metaphor maker in the People Who Aren't Very Good at Metaphor Making convention. Try the veal!