WHCD: A History

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away -- before Hollywood types like George Lucas and enough star power to light up the Golden Globes descended on Washington -- the White House Correspondents' Dinner had three purposes for the ink-stained wretches who actually cover government:

1) To pointedly ask top officials, "Why haven't you returned my phone calls?"

2) To watch a president painfully struggle to be funny without offending any important voting bloc.

3) To tally up the fashion errors of your strapped-for-cash newsroom colleagues as they struggle with the intricacies of rented tuxedos and sometimes overly revealing ball gowns.

Okay, nostalgia like that is so 20^th century. But what remains true is that the formal portion of the evening broadcast on C-Span is usually less interesting than the parties. Still, what was engaging about Barack Obama's speech was that it did not seem to be over-produced – there being no elaborate White House videos about the search for WMD, and no lengthy self-deprecating presidential stories meandering in search of a punch line.

My only critique of Obama is that some of his one-liners (such as likening Tim Geithner to a fire hydrant) had a small tinge of meanness that may cause the butt of the jokes to wonder nervously "Did the president really mean that?" By the way, I am not referring to my favorite crack of the evening, Obama's suggestion that Dick Cheney's memoir be called, "How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People."

The comedic entertainment (non-1600 Pennsylvania Avenue division) at these events has veered all over the map from Elayne Boosler working semi-blue at Bill Clinton's first dinner to Stephen Colbert deftly deflating the preening pretensions of the Bush-era press corps to Ray Romano (the year after Colbert) doing a routine that even third graders attending a Christian academy might have found excessively bland. As for Wanda Sykes last night, let's just say, "I knew Ray Romano, Ray Romano was a friend of mine. And you're no Ray Romano."

While some of her lines were dead-on (suggesting that Obama is the first black president only until he screws up and then, in her view, he becomes "half-white"), her rant against Rush Limbaugh (probably the most deserving comic target this side of Cheney) crossed a line that made me long for Tim Geithner fire-hydrant jokes. It wasn't the 20^th hijacker jab or the OxyContin crack. What made me cringe was when she followed up by snarling, "Rush Limbaugh [says] `I hope the country fails.' I hope his kidneys fail, how about that?"

But at least some traditions were maintained Saturday night in Washington. At the Vanity Fair after-party at the French embassy, I did get to say to two Obama aides, "Why haven't you returned my phone calls?"

More From the White House Correspondents Dinner:
Have Camera, Will Make New Best Friends by Melinda Henneberger
Stars Speak to Ordinary Humans by Lynn Sweet
Snark after Dark by Jill Lawrence
Amber Who? by Patricia Murphy