Obama Calls Mrs. Reagan to Apologize for a Bad Joke

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Byline: Stephen Dinan, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

President-elect Barack Obama called to apologize to former first lady Nancy Reagan on Friday after he made an errant joke at her expense in his first postelection press conference.

Mr. Obama, answering a question about which ex-presidents' advice he sought, said he had spoken to all of them that are living. He went on, but appeared to realize he probably didn't need the living qualifier, and explained, I didn't want to get into a Nancy Reagan thing about, you know, doing any seances.

The joke at the expense of the ailing former first lady rubbed some who heard it the wrong way, and within hours Mr. Obama said he …