This morning, the Wall Street Journal takes time off from its relentless financial reporting and grim statistics to salute the telling of a humorous story as a leadership tool. Albert Hunt quotes Mark Katz to the effect that three modern American Presidents with the highest public favorability are John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all share something in common: they were masters at the use of the humorous story to deflect criticisms and to de-fang opponents.

Mark Katz was Bill Clinton jokester and is the author of a just-released book on political comedy, "Clinton & Me." 

Katz argues that humor as a leadership tool should initially be self-deprecating. But once you're sufficiently self-deprecating, then you can go for the jugular because you have acquired the right to be deprecating of others.

He says Bill Clinton had to learn the virtues of a presidential brand of political humor but was a quick study. In 1993, the president had gotten off to a rocky start and, using Katz material at one of his first big Washington dinners, declared: "I don't think I'm doing that badly. After his First Hundred Days in office, William Henry Harrison had already been dead for 68 days!"

Katz's book gives a number of good examples: 

• RONALD REAGAN: Ronald Reagan stole ammunition from the critics as the best way of defending himself. For example: "I am not worried about the deficit. It is big enough to take care of itself."

• JOHN KENNEDY: In 1958, then-Senator Kennedy was already leading the pack for the Democratic presidential nomination, but many in Washington still dismissed him as the brash son of a wealthy and unscrupulous man, a father too eager to bankroll his son's upcoming bid for the White House. Speaking at the Capitol Hilton before an audience of such skeptics, Kennedy held up what he said was a telegram from his "generous daddy" and read it aloud: "Jack, Don't spend one dime more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I am going to pay for a landslide."   

• CLINTON AND WHITEWATER: At an Alfalfa Club evening, Bill Clinton had to give a talk to the same Washington journalists who had recently made "Whitewater" a household word. He opened with the following line:  "I am delighted to be here tonight. And if you believe that, I have some land in northwest Arkansas I'd like to sell you." 

• CLINTON AND THE EGG TIMER: In 1994, Clinton had to give a speech to the Alfalfa Club, a fraternity of corporate CEOs, federal power brokers, and other establishment stalwarts. It was four days after his third State of the Union address. Clinton was already notorious for his too-long orations and this had been Clinton's longest SOTU yet--one hour and twenty-one minutes--a fact pundits were using as a metaphor for an undisciplined, flailing presidency. According to the press, the speech had been far too long, even though Clinton could point to the extraordinarily high approval ratings of the speech which had come in at 83 percent positive. Clinton dealt with the issue by bringing to the podium an egg timer. He pulled the timer from his pocket, set it to five minutes and went on with his speech. Once the timer expired, he added as many minutes as he wanted, as often as he wanted. 

• CLINTON AND IMPEACHMENT: On another occasion, Clinton joked: "I won't kid you. This was an awful year. It was a year I wouldn't wish upon my worst enemy - No, I take that back."  

• CLINTON AND STEPHANOPOULOUS’S BOOK: On another occasion, Clinton had to give a press speech at a time when former White House aide George Stephanopoulos was about to publish his book exploring the inner workings of the White House, including his obsession with analyzing polls. During his speech, Clinton dealt with this by purporting to read from his imaginary memoirs. "Page 319: "I was sitting at my desk reinventing government one day when pollster Mark Penn walked into the Oval Office. He was waving a sheet of paper. 'Mr. President, the overnight polls say. . .' I cut him off: 'The polls? Why are you always bringing me polls?'"

• For George Bush, every joke should be smart. He should use humor to showcase a more cerebral wit in order to counter the perception he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

• For John Kerry, he would use the Al Gore model: "He has to use humor to humanize and connect ... Counter the perception that he is stiff."  Mr. Katz would include in the Kerry repertoire lines about the senator's wealth and his sometimes-controversial wife, Teresa. See for example the John Kennedy line above.

For more examples of Storytelling in The News, go to the Archive