Obama pokes fun at sequester at Gridiron dinner

At the annual Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner President Barack Obama joked about the sequester, Vice President Joe Biden, and Marco Rubio's sip of water.

|
Charles Dharapak/AP
President Barack Obama walks with Chief of Staff Denis McDonough, (r.), as they leave the Gridiron Dinner through a loading area at a hotel in Washington, Saturday.

President Barack Obama had a ready excuse for anyone who didn't think he was funny enough at Saturday night's Gridiron dinner: "My joke writers have been placed on furlough."

Always a target for humorous barbs, the president tossed out a few of his own during the Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner, an annual event that features political leaders, journalists and media executives poking fun at each other.

The so-called sequester that struck the federal budget this month drew another observation from Obama: "Of course, there's one thing in Washington that didn't get cut — the length of this dinner. Yet more proof that the sequester makes no sense."

The ambitions of 70-year-old Vice President Joe Biden? "Just the other day, I had to take Joe aside and say, 'Joe, you are way too young to be the pope. You can't do it. You got to mature a little bit.'"

During a pause in his remarks, Obama took a long, slow sip of water and then said, "That, Marco Rubio, is how you take a sip of water."

Obama also mocked criticism from some quarters that he takes time off from his job. "We face major challenges. March in particular is going to be full of tough decisions. But I want to assure you, I have my top advisers working around the clock. After all, my March Madness bracket isn't going to fill itself out. And don't worry — there is an entire team in the Situation Room as we speak, planning my next golf outing, right now at this moment."

The dinner was the organization's 128th since its founding in 1885. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar represented the Democrats while Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal cracked wise for the Republicans.

Klobuchar joked that Obama had aged in office. "His Secret Service name used to be 'Renegade,'" she said. "Now it's '50 Shades of Gray.'"

Jindal took a poke at Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, telling the audience that Romney had warned him that "47 percent of you can't take a joke." Referring to his own prospects for a presidential run, Jindal asked, "What chance does a skinny guy with a dark complexion have of being elected president?"

Political disputes and feuds between politicians and the news media provided plenty of fodder for jokes and Gridiron parodies. There was Obama's sometimes frosty relationship with the news media, the internal struggles roiling the Republican Party, and journalist Bob Woodward's dustup with White House economic adviser Gene Sperling. He advised Woodward in an email that the veteran Watergate reporter would regret his reporting about the forced spending cuts called a sequester.

In prepared remarks to welcome the 650 people attending the dinner, Gridiron President Charles J. Lewis of Hearst Newspapers noted that the organization had promised to keep the evening short, "especially because Gene Sperling said that a late night is something we'd all regret."

With a nod to print reporters' complaints about dealing with the Obama administration, Lewis said he thought he had overhead Obama remark on the way to the dinner: "So many newspaper reporters. So many interviews to turn down."

Musical skits are a tradition at the Gridiron dinner, and club officials released its musical program ahead of the event. Using the Beatles song "When I'm 64," one skit featured a look at Hillary Rodham Clinton's future with the lyrics:

Got a bit older, Growing my hair, Gained a pound or two

Going home to vegetate in Chappaqua, I just want to be a grandma

It was more than a case of Benghazi flu, Still I'll be just fine.

Will you select me, will you elect me, When I'm 69

Noting the close relationship between the GOP and the National Rifle Association, Gridiron members sang a tune called "My Gun," a takeoff on the song "My Girl." The lyrics included:

If you hate the NRA/Tell my Walther PPK

You're flirting with disaster/With my Bushmaster

And when pigs fly away/You can take me away

From my gun

In a jab at Obama, the Gridiron players offered a version of "Pinball Wizard" that put to music complaints about some journalists' lack of access to the president:

Who knew when his magic/First had us all transfixed

That this politician/Hated politics?

Loves his teleprompter, loves a White House ball

But mighty Obama/Don't schmooze with us at all.

The Gridiron Club and Foundation contributes to college scholarships and journalistic organizations. It limits its active members to 65 journalists based in Washington.

Except for Grover Cleveland, every president since the Gridiron was founded has addressed it. The club is the oldest and most exclusive for Washington journalists. Its motto is "singe but never burn."

No TV cameras were allowed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Obama pokes fun at sequester at Gridiron dinner
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2013/0310/Obama-pokes-fun-at-sequester-at-Gridiron-dinner
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe