Can Vice President Joe Biden make a ballroom full of savvy insiders laugh at a time of economic turmoil?
Yes, he can.
Biden, filling in for President Barack Obama at Saturday night’s Gridiron Club dinner, poked fun at Obama’s charismatic persona by explaining that “he couldn’t make it because he’s busy preparing for Easter,” which in fact is still three weeks away.
"He thinks it's about him," Biden dead panned.
In some Beltway circles, Obama’s absence was viewed as a snub of the media elite, since he chose to be ensconced with his family at Camp David only a brief helicopter ride away. Obama is the first president to skip the dinner in his first year in office since Grover Cleveland in 1885, when the journalists’ club was founded.
Biden even came up with an excuse of sorts for Cleveland: “He was married to a 21 year old girl and had better things to do.”
Although newspaper revenues are in free fall, causing Washington bureaus to close at nearly the same pace as the Gridiron stage show’s weekend run, Biden told the fancy-dress audience of 600 guests at the Renaissance Washington hotel that newspapers still have a vital role to play.
“You can’t house break a puppy on the Internet,” he said, citing “Champ,” the Biden family’s newly acquired German Sheppard.
For that matter, as Biden saw it, it wouldn’t hurt for Rahm Emanuel a fellow attendee whose foul mouthed reputation has followed him from Congress to the White House to master some house breaking skills as well.
The walls between his office and that of Obama’s chief of staff “are paper thin,” Biden noted, likening the experience to “listening to ‘Sesame Street’ where every day is brought to you by the letter ‘F.’”
In contrast to some other Democrats, Biden had nice things to say about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, who departed soon after Tribune Company columnist Doyle McManus portrayed him on stage.
“Tim Geithner is always there when you need money no questions asked,” Biden said.
“We’ve got a plan for a plan to make a plan to plan … a pla aan,” McManus sang.
California Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who was born in Austria, and Michigan Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm, who was born in Canada, also spoke after members of the exclusive journalists’ club, dressed in rakish costumes and bolstered by several ringers, mounted skits that lampooned both their political parties.
Although nominally off-the-record, Gridiron dinners have often been demanding auditions for aspiring politicians, including, previously, Obama. But Schwarzenegger’s and Granholm’s foreign births eliminate them as potential presidential candidates.
Biden congratulated Schwarzenegger “on a really great speech,” adding, “I can hardly wait for the English translation.”
For his part, Schwarzenegger alleged that Emanuel “is concerned that some ninth graders are cursing only at the fifth grade level.”
Noting that his marriage ceremony required him to take his wife, former newscaster and Kennedy scion Maria Shriver, “in sickness or in health,” he said, “And being a Democrat is her sickness.”
Granholm asked Schwarzenegger which of his movies had best prepared him to deal with a party now led by radio commentator Rush Limbaugh and Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele.
The choices, she said, are "True Lies" or "Kindergarten Cop."
Imagining a reverse version of "The Dating Game," a show on which she and Schwarzenegger once appeared – albeit separately -- Granholm turned to him and said: “Let's get started, Governor No. 1."
Then she interjected: “And believe me, that’s better than being called ‘Client No. 9.’”
Inside joke: Eliot Spitzer was forced to resign as New York’s governor, shortly after attending last year’s dinner, when court papers cited him as “Client 9” in a call girl ring.
In making light of the financial crisis, several of the journalists’ skits paid heed to the depressed state of their own industry. “Will Twitter for food,” a sign held by a chorus member read.
Dick Cooper, this year’s club president, opened the evening’s festivities by noting that “the newspaper industry and the Obama administration have one thing in common: They’re both deep into deficit spending.” He asked the assembled guests to “please stop by our bake sale in the lobby as you leave.”
Cooper is one of some 35 editors and reporters at the Tribune Company’s Washington Bureau. At the peak, there were a combined 110 staffers working in Washington for print outlets owned by the now-bankrupt newspaper chain.
Although Obama was absent, a coterie of White House aides showed up for the four-hour white tie dinner. In addition to Emanuel, the Democratic speaker at the 2006 dinner, press secretary Robert Gibbs and senior advisor Valerie Jarrett attended.
So did two other governors: Tim Kane (D Va.) and Bill Ritter Jr. (D-Colo.). Four senators also came: Susan Collins (R Maine), Ted Kaufman (D Del.), Amy Klobuchar (D Minn.) and Ben Nelson (D Neb.).
They were joined by a group from the House led by Reps. Chris Van Hollen (D Md.), John Dingell, (D Mich.) and Chet Edwards (D Texas.) Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy sat on the dais. (Each year, the club invites all nine Supreme Court justices, but judicial etiquette dictates that only two may accept.)
The U.S. Marine Band, which played as the dinner began, has been associated with the club of 65 active journalists since the time that John Philip Sousa directed the musical activities of both organizations. Gen. James Conway, the Marine Corps’ commandant, came, along with an array of top military brass, all also seated at the dais in their be-medaled dress uniforms.
As the oldest organization of Washington journalists, the club has traditionally inducted newspaper bureau chiefs and columnists. Lately, however, it has opened its membership rolls (and stage roles) to non print media glitterati.
While on stage, one such newly minted inductee, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, spoofed former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, her husband and a veteran guest. “Hell,” she quipped, “if I had understood what he was saying, we would have been married 12 years earlier.”
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