At Saturday night's 125th annual Gridiron Dinner -- meaning the first one took place two centuries ago in 1885 -- there were three speakers: An ex-president, who seemed thrilled to be back in Washington doing stand-in, stand-up comedy, and a Republican and a Democratic senator who were just a wee bit raunchy.
Bill Clinton, who spoke best and last, arrived late because he'd spent part of Saturday on the phone lobbying wavering Democrats on health care.
"So tell the truth guys, do you miss me?" he asked more than 600 media heavies, politicians, consultants, business leaders and diplomats gathered at the Renaissance Washington Hotel to dine on cold asparagus and crab soup, veal chops and copious quantities of wine.
Though he never got his own health care overhaul, Clinton predicted passage of this one. "It may not happen in my lifetime or in Dick Cheney's but hopefully by Easter," cracked Clinton, who shares a history of heart trouble, but seemingly little else, with the former GOP veep. "Nowadays, my favorite cocktail is Lipitor on the rocks."
Usually it's the president or vice president who speaks at the end of a dinner that includes elaborately costumed musical skits that skewer Republicans and Democrats [see lyrics]. But Barack Obama, for the second successive year, sent his regrets (he went to Camp David last year, and this year scrapped his Indonesia trip to wrangle health care votes). Joe Biden, the 2009 proxy, also took a pass. So Clinton took over, which Obama acknowledged in a brief, pre-dinner video greeting.
Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri, who delivered the Democrats' speech, wondered what Obama would even gain by coming and "sucking up to the media. The press went all the way on the first date." As for lust, the 56-year-old lawmaker mused: "There is only one place a woman my age can feel like a hot young chick. It's the United States Senate. . . . Every time I talked about Missouri being the Show Me state, I had to tell David Vitter to put his pants back on." [Pause] "Clinton likes that one," cracked McCaskill, eyeing the former president on her right after she finished dissing the Louisiana Republican senator. Vitter was identified by the "D.C. Madam" three years ago as a client of a ring of working girls. In Washington, McCaskill said, there are differences between a prostitute and a politician. "There are some things even a hooker won't do."
Utah's tee-totaling Mormon Sen. Orrin Hatch, speaking for the Republicans, raised a few eyebrows with his brand of mild raunch: "When I went through security, they asked me if I had a bomb in my underwear. Modesty, of course, kept me from answering truthfully. . . . My wife knows me as the original stimulus package, and it's better than the one we have." Bada-boom.
The Gridiron Club, founded in 1885, has nothing to do with football and everything to do with comity and the cultivation of political sources, not to mention the feeding, stroking and introducing of all those editors, publishers and owners to important guests, most of whom drive the wait staff nuts by jamming the aisles to socialize.
It is the smallest (only 600 attendees), fanciest (white tie and tailcoats for the gents, don't cha know) and least exposed of the Washington media extravaganzas. (It's never been on C-SPAN; although nominally off the record, it is tweeted and blogged, about, even by some of the the club's members and Lord knows how many guests these days).
The audience is long on officials and short on pop stars and scandal magnets. You won't find John Edwards or Tiger Woods among such luminaries as Valerie Jarrett, David Axelrod and Susan Sher of the White House; Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Agriculture Secretary Tim Vilsack, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
There were Republicans, too, including RNC Chairman Michael Steele and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. And the only glimpse of White House gate-crashers Michaela and Tareq Salahi were onstage, played by Bloomberg's Al Hunt and his sari-clad wife, Judy Woodruff of the PBS "NewsHour."
This year's show was a victory for the club's unofficial rock 'n' roll caucus, which since the late 1980s has sought to build musical parodies more contemporary than mid-20th-century show tunes and 19th-century operatic arias. Cindy Lauper, Michael Jackson and Queen may not sound all that hot, but the 2010 songbook represents exponential progress. Trust me on this one. I've been a club member since 1990.
The Gridiron Dinner is the second in what I call the Rites of Spring Media Trifecta. The first event was held on St. Patrick's Day by the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association, with BBC America throwing a glam after-party nearby. After Gridiron comes what has grown into a three-day orgy of parties small and large melding the Washington-Hollywood-New York axis of celebs, journos and pols. They're all scheduled around the May 1 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner for 2,500 guests, many of them stalwarts of stage, screen, cable, gossip columns and supermarket tabloids.
Stay tuned. For those of you who weren't invited, here are the skit lyrics:
Democrats Are in Big Trouble
(Billie Jean)
He hit the scene in his mom jeans
He was so serene
He told me Nancy
Don't you worry
I am the one
Who can raise GDP from the dead
He said I am the one
Happy days, world peace
Are ahead
I told the Blue Dogs
Don't be scaredy cats
Or flee like rats
We've got a mandate
To spend and tax
We are the ones
Who can pass anything, just relax
Someone forgot to tell me
Scott Brown would be a hit
And turn us all into populists
And no one thought to tell me
How quickly we would fade
Pushing cap and trade
And Nebraska's Medicaid
Democrats are in big trouble
We can't blame Dubya
Now that we are the ones
And Barack don't have to run
Now that we are the ones
Town hall meetings ain't much fun
Be careful what you wish for
'Cause leadership is hard
So many things to regulate
Thank God for all our spending
We've got a credit card
And we hoped that all that snow
Would shut down the CBO
Hey, Hey
Democrats are in big trouble
We've got incumbents leaving Congress in mobs
But we count those as new jobs
All those tea party mobs
Make it hard to do my job
Democrats are in big trouble
Democrats are in big trouble
Democrats are in big trouble
BEAT IT
They told Republicans don't come around here
They wanted us to vote with them or disappear
Well I am Mitch McConnell and I made it real clear
We'd beat 'em
We'd beat 'em
We couldn't do much but we had to save face
While Limbaugh and Glen Beck were riling up our base
So we used filibusters to slow down the pace
Can't beat it
We don't have to play fair
Just beat it, beat it, beat it
Say we don't have time to read it
Hold nominations, dig up some dirt
Make them get cloture until it's absurd
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Don't ask for our solutions, we're not playing that game
It's easier to criticize and fix the blame
We chased off Dodd and Bayh and Byron what's-his-name
We beat 'em,
And watch out John McCain
Just beat it, beat it, beat it
We will just say no, defeat it
We left Obama one giant mess
That is the secret to our success
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it, beat it
Just beat it!
Black and White
(Black or White)
A D.C. ballroom on a Saturday night
The mighty Gridiron turning 125
We've abandoned some traditions
We've got TV stars
who don't even write
But men who come to Gridiron
Still have to wear a tie that's white
We blog and twitter and we shoot video
But we're still looking for a way to make dough
You got Kindles, I-Pads, netbooks
Every fancy way
to read megabytes
But the only people paying are the ones
Who read in black and white
It's black and white
And meg- abytes
It's black and white
Let's us survive
Its black and white
Our suits? Too bright!
Our club -- all right
One twenty five
So welcome to the Gridiron
We hope that you're not here all night
So welcome to the Gridiron
We hope that you're not here all night.
It's a Grand Year for Running
(from State Fair: "It's a Grand Night for Singing")
It's a grand year for running
The GOP's flying high
The tea parties show
We can beat them with "NO!"
While screaming our hearts to the sky!
It's a grand year for running
The stars are all aligned
Rush Limbaugh's a-glow
Glen Beck adds to the show
We think we can clean up this year,
Clean up, clean up this year.
It's a grand year to block things
Pelosi's running scared
We'll stop cap and trade
Rain on their parade
'Cause Palin is now on the air.
It's a year for obstruction
The scene's like '94
Our majority's near
If there's no new affair
So fellas, please zip up this year,
Zip up, Zip up this year.
BRIDGE:
Maybe it's more than the war
Maybe it's more than the banks
Maybe it's more than retiring Dems
Retirements deserving our thanks!
Maybe it's more than health care
Though that really helped raise our stock
Maybe the reason we're feeling so swell, Has something to do with Ba-rack!
It's a grand year for running
The GOP's flying high
The tea parties show
We can beat them with "NO!"
While screaming our hearts to the sky!
It's a grand year for running
The scene's like '94
Our majority's near
If there's no new affair
So fellas, please zip up this year
Zip up, zip up this year
Not Born in the USA
(from "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen)
I've been thinkin' 'bout our prez-e-dent
And his liberal pinko commie bent
We got a foreigner in the White House now
And to all them other foreigners, he takes a bow
He's not born in the USA
He's not . . . born in the USA
His birth certificate's a mystery
For all we know he's from Nairobi
'May be from Kenya, I was told last fall
I heard it from the Birthers and they know it all
He's not born in the USA
He's not . . . born in the USA
He's got a darn sus-pi-cious middle name
Amer-i-cans don't name their kids Hussein
He claims Hawaii but the hell I say
Hawaii isn't even in the USA
He's not born in the USA
He's not . . . born in the USA.
TEA FOR TWO
We're right, they're wrong, we're millions strong
With quiet voice, Say no to choice
We're not the wing nuts you see on TV.
We can't abide Obama-crats
Kill Fannie Mae
Close Freddie Mac
We won't bail out
Another freaking thing!
Our revolt is televised
It's Rachel Maddow we despise
So next, let's shut down M-S-N-B-C!
The tea party movement, will bring much improvement
In an effort to encourage the same level of civil dialogue among Politics Daily’s readers that we expect of our writers – a “civilogue,” to use the term coined by PD’s Jeffrey Weiss – we are requiring commenters to use their AOL or AIM screen names to submit a comment, and we are reading all comments before publishing them. Personal attacks (on writers, other readers, Nancy Pelosi, George W. Bush, or anyone at all) and comments that are not productive additions to the conversation will not be published, period, to make room for a discussion among those with ideas to kick around. Please read our Help and Feedback section for more info.