Non-Exhausted Dave Chappelle Spotted Near White House
If we're going to point out Dave Chappelle's every suspicion-raising trip to the emergency room, it seems only fair that we should turn our readers' attention to follow-up stories in which the comedian suddenly resurfaces on the other side of the country, showing no signs of the exhaustion that required a brief, publicity-attracting hospital stay. Accordingly, we note this serendipitous encounter outside of the White House between CNN correspondent Ed Henry and the Chappelle from earlier this morning, in which the reporter stumbled upon the peripatetic comic during his morning constitutional from Georgetown to Captiol Hill. Blogs Henry:
But as I headed through the screening machine in the Secret Service's security shack, I overheard someone say, "Hey, that's Dave Chappelle out there. That's Dave Chappelle, I'm telling you."
"No way," I said. "Isn't he in the hospital?"
But then I spun around and looked through the glass of the security shack to find a guy who indeed looked exactly like Chappelle. I couldn't resist chasing a story — even a non-political one — so I grabbed my backpack and headed back to the street.
A man was standing at the gate asking Chappelle, "Are you who I think you are?"
Chappelle scrunched his face into that familiar pose and declared: "And who do you think I am?"
Despite how cutting off Henry's report at this highly quotable juncture might make it sound, Chappelle was not, in fact, trying to convince the journalist that he now believed himself to be Jesus by vaguely echoing the Messiah's famous words to disbelieving followers. We'll leave it to you to click over and read the rest of the piece, where the new fast friends celebrate their chance meeting outside the White House by splitting a joint and musing about how much better the country would be run if President Bush were a pothead.