Washingtonians sit through terrible speeches all the time: dry rules hearings, partisan floor lectures and, let’s face it, even the State of the Union some years.

So it was a bad day for Rep. Donna Edwards Thursday, when Washingtonians gathered at coffee pots and in lunch rooms across town and deemed her performance at the Washington Press Club Foundation annual dinner Wednesday night the most painful speech we’ve endured in a long time.

It was supposed to be a comedy – an annual ritual where a member of Congress entertains a wonky crowd of journalists, lawmakers, and all variety of political insiders with jokes you wouldn’t mind repeating to your mother.

But more people were wincing than laughing…

…At one point Edwards, a Democrat from Maryland, made the equivalent of a sexual battle cry to ladies in the room: “Come on, help me y’all: I want to give a really special shout out to Nancy Pelosi and all my sisters in the libido caucus — holla’!” she cried out, raising her hands above her head.

Reaction: blank stares and furrowed brows…

…At one point she seemed to compare Republicans to monkeys with typewriters who keep typing “Benghazi, Benghazi, Benghazi” over and over again.
Some just got up and left.