June 27 —  Professional stand-up comedians know that Sept. 11 jokes are radioactive. Not even the bravest have tried to turn the deaths of some 3,000 people into a laughing matter. But President Bush has forged ahead anyway. Bush has now been telling the same, spectacularly tasteless joke to a variety of mostly Republican audiences as part of his stock stump speech for the better part of four months now.

THIS IS its basic telling:
     
“You know, when I was running for president, in Chicago, somebody said, would you ever have deficit spending? I said, only if we were at war, or only if we had a recession, or only if we had a national emergency. Never did I dream we’d get the trifecta.”
     
According to the transcripts, this joke usually elicits laughter from the mostly GOP crowds to whom Bush tells it.

So far, the president has told the joke on the record at least 14 times. It originated, evidently, as an anecdote he told to business leaders Oct. 3 — three weeks after the terrorist attacks — when he explained his three-part reasoning for going into deficit spending.
     
Bush appears to have added the “trifecta” joke for the first time before a group of visiting Republicans at the White House on Nov. 9. He pulled it out again for a huddle with congressional GOP leaders on Feb. 1. Since then, Bush apparently decided to make it part of his stump speech, beginning with a GOP luncheon on Feb. 27. The tellings have come more regularly, and have been largely at GOP fund-raising functions. The most recent appearance of the joke was June 14, at a reception for Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign in Houston.
     
Bush appears to give “trifecta” a sort of rueful, ironic meaning. But therein also lies the morbid edge: After all, Bush — who in the weeks preceding the tragedy faced mounting questions about his ability as well as his legitimacy, all of which vanished afterward — is possibly the only American for whom Sept. 11 was indeed a stroke of incredible good fortune.