In a week where birth certificates and marriage licenses outshouted armed conflicts abroad and natural disasters at home for front page coverage, perhaps the only healthy response short of going off the grid is to embrace the absurdity and laugh it all off. This certainly seems to have been the air at Saturday’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, headlined by SNL head writer Seth Meyers.
A staple on the Capitol Hill social calendar since 1920, the dinner brings together the nation’s political elites, celebrities and the journalists who cover them for a well-roasted evening of tongue-in-cheek barbs across the aisle, capped in recent years by a self-effacing presidential address. Lions may not be laying with lambs, but for one glitzy night FOX and friends MSNBC, NPR et al put aside the one-upmanship and competition to chortle and cavort en masse.
President Obama’s address was peppered with birther and long-form documentation humor, including his entrance to “Real American” (Hulk Hogan’s pre-shirt-tear entrance song) and exclusive release of his “birth video” (see the video – too good to spoil). He ribbed the GOP attendees at every juncture, from expressing relief at NPR’s continued existence to welcoming all the “celebrities, senators, journalists, essential government employees, non-essential government employees.” Obama likewise took aim at a slew of GOP presidential frontrunners (all in attendance) by name, citing “vicious rumors” that Mitt Romney had passed universal healthcare during his governorship (is the President perhaps an Onion fan?), revealing that supposedly “all-American” Tim “Hosni” Pawlenty might be more than he seems and questioning Michele Bachmann’s Canadian ancestry. He visibly reveled in an extensive lampooning of Donald Trump, who had fueled the birther controversy. The President cited the Donald’s “credentials and breadth of experience” with a wink and a nod, his recent firing of Gary Busey from Celebrity Apprentice and his deft handling of similarly weighty and presidential decisions.
The President’s address was not without its more sober moments as well. He urged the press corps to continue to tell the stories of those in need of a voice and help both abroad and in the US, making particular reference to the “unimaginable devastation” of the recent tornado in Alabama and neighboring states. In glimpses of rather brutal honesty and self-criticism, the President also acknowledged that the “honeymoon is over,” nodding to slumping approval polls and critics who accuse him of arrogance and being “overly professorial.”
The White House correspondents’ dinner has long featured big-name entertainment and comedy headliners to shore up the executive funny bone, particularly satirists and parody comics ranging from Frank Sinatra in ’45 under FDR, Bob Hope and Chevy Chase in ’76 under Ford, to Jon Stewart in ’97 and Colbert’s roast of Bush in 2006. Jay Leno hosted the dinner last year close on the heels of his rather unceremonious exit from The Tonight Show.
Seth Meyers likewise proved his mettle at the dinner’s helm, poking indiscriminate digs at C-SPAN (“the official network for wide shots of empty chairs”), his own struggling NBC (which he assumes Comcast must have acquired by accident), the New York Times (whose after party used to be free before they started demanding a cover) and the other major networks and brand-name journalists in the crowd (“if you ever see Anderson Cooper with his shirt off, turn off the TV and run”).
Like Obama, Meyers could not resist obvious GOP targets, suggesting that “the options that the Republicans are kicking around” to field in the 2012 race, among them Gringrich, Palin and Huckabee, sound “more like Season 13 of Dancing with the Stars.” Meyers likewise took his time roasting Donald Trump, harking on the real estate mogul’s crass style, accent, trademark toupee and reality TV series.
At this point, however, Meyers’ remarks took a subtle but pivotal turn. Surveying the field of GOP bodies he had just demolished, he found none among them to compete with Obama in 2012. But, turning to face the President directly, he delivered the line of the night: “But I tell you who could beat you, Mr. President — 2008 Barack Obama. You would have loved him.”
The President laughed and the crowd roared as Meyers continued on, pointing out how much Obama has aged since his inauguration (“If your hair gets any whiter the Tea Party will endorse it”) and suggesting that the President pick up smoking again, but the verity of the Fool’s prattle left its indelible mark. In that moment, Meyers spoke for many thousands more than just himself. “You would have loved him.” As the campaign fog descends once again and the 2012 race draws near, the nation and the President (hopefully) enter a time of genuine reflection on progress, legacy and aspiration. The US does not need, nor should it settle for, the Incumbent-Shoo-in We’ve Been Waiting For. There are miles to go and promises to keep, Mr. President, and not a few skeletons to account for. Instead of admonishing him to set the bar a bit lower this next time, to under-promise and over-deliver, how about insisting on the delivery owed?
