The Broken Chair

Barbra Streisand opened her first U.S. tour in 12 years on Wednesday with a show that ridiculed her political nemesis, President George W. Bush.

Before a capacity crowd of some 16,000 people at South Philadelphia's Wachovia Center, Streisand gave assured renditions of standards from her long career as a singer and actress including "Funny Girl," "Come Rain or Come Shine," "Love Soft as an Easy Chair," and "Somewhere."

The show also featured a skit where an actor playing Bush uttered such lines as, "I'm concerned about the national debt, so I'm selling Canada," and "If I cared about the polls I would have run for president of Poland."