White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington DC.
by Wild Thing
The White House Correspondents Association represents the White House press corps. They hold an annual dinner to raise money for scholarships and to honor recipients.
The White House Correspondents’ Association was born on Feb. 25, 1914, after the White House let it be known that President Woodrow Wilson was interested in having an unprecedented series of regularly scheduled press conferences but was unsure how to pick the reporters to invite to these sessions.
In 1924, Calvin Coolidge became the first of 14 presidents to attend the dinner.
Until World War II, the annual dinner was an entertainment extravaganza, featuring singing between courses, a homemade movie and an hour-long, post-dinner show with big-name performers. During the War years the dinner tradition continued, but the event was more subdued. A 1944 article in the Charlotte Observe reported:
“The most complete turnout of the Nation’s war leaders since Pearl Harbor ate unrationed duck and traded off-the-record political wisecracks with the Capital’s press last night at the annual dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association. President Roosevelt, attending the only party outside the White House that he allows himself in wartime, sang loud when the entertainers called for audience participation, and laughed louder at some of the fourth term jokes which flew thick all evening.”
The idea of this dinner is that the current president poke fun at himself and his administration, and that the comedian poke “lighthearted fun” at the current administration.
This night occurs once a year and was supposed to be a night of fun. A night when both sides, along with the press, poke fun at one another without the nastiness.
The comedians asked to perform there seem to do best when they joke with gentle jibes rather than go for the jugular…..but then there is Wanda Sykes.
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Wanda Sykes 1/2: White House Correspondents’ Dinner
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She kissed up to Obama and Michelle and then went after George W. Bush, John McCain, Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. C-SPAN cameras caught Fox News commentator Glenn Beck sitting stone-faced after Sykes had singled out one conservative after another for her insults.
“This is amazing, you’re the first black president. I’m proud to be able to say. But that’s unless you screw up. And then it’s going to be, ‘What’s up with that half-white guy? Who voted for the mulatto. What the hell?’ ”
She also poked fun at Nancy Pelosi, saying it was the House Speaker’s idea for Obama and VP Joe Biden to grab hamburgers for lunch the other day. “You guys can’t hang out together. What’d she say, ‘Why don’t you boys go out and get a bite’? You know she was a Hillary supporter.”
President George W Bush. “I gotta say, he broke a lot of stuff. You thought you were moving into a new home, and you’ve got a fixer-upper. And there are a lot of things that need to be fixed.”
ON Sarah Palin she was totally horrible with that disgusting “pulled out too soon” ‘joke’ referencing Sarah Palin’s daughter… (Todd Palin is in the audience with Greta Van Sustern and her husband)
Dick Cheney, Sykes commented, “Oh my god, that’s a scary man. Scares me to death. I tell my kids if two cars pull up, and one has a stranger, and the other car has Dick Cheney, you get in the car with the stranger.” And she criticized the former VP for “trying to defend torture”.
Rush Limbaugh. “Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. That’s like saying, ‘I hope America fails.’ Or that ‘I don’t care if people are losing their homes, their jobs, our soldiers in Iraq.’ He just wants the country to fail. To me, that’s treason. He’s not saying anything differently than what Osama Bin Laden is saying.” Then, turning to the president, Sykes added, “You might want to look into this, sir. Because I think maybe he was the 20th hijacker. But he was just so strung out on Oxycontin that he missed his flight.”
Realizing she shocked the crowd with that remark, she said, “Too much? But you’re laughing on the inside…”
And when she first referenced Rush and Oxycontin or whatever, the audience seemed uncomfortable. Because whether they like him or not, he is EXACTLY what ALL of them hope to be…they wished they were HALF as powerful with HALF his audience…alas, they remain more sheep in the stable of lies, deceit, and fairy tales
But she wasn’t done. “Rush Limbaugh says ‘I hope the country fails.” I hope his kidneys fail. How about that? He needs some waterboarding, that’s what he needs.”
Obama was laughing his ass off during the Palin “Jokes” and laughed even harder when he heard that disgusting comment about wanting Rush’s kidneys to fail..
Just a pure lack of class. Remember in Clinton’s first dinner, he made some reference to Limbaugh defending Janet Reno against John Conyers. “He only did that because she was attacked by a black guy”. That was disgusting and offensive and Sam Donaldson told Rush to go confront Clinton right there.
Clinton’s a sleaze, but at least he didn’t wish death upon Limbaugh. And Obama thinking it was funny makes it that much more disgusting.
On the subject of Sean Hannity, Sykes noted that the Fox News commentator has offered to be waterboarded for charity. “Let Keith Olbermann waterboard him. He can’t take a waterboarding. I can break Sean Hannity just by giving him a middle seat in coach.”
I can’t remember a journalists’ dinner like this where the comedian spent more than half the time dissing the previous administration. And her attacks of the talk show hosts, Rush and Sean , especially Rush were beyond acceptable on any level.
White House senior adviser David Alexrod had this reaction to Wanda Sykes’s humor:
“I thought she was very entertaining. She walked it to the line, but I thought she pulled it back.”
Bill O’ Reilly, meanwhile, walked passed photographers without giving his take.
“I got nothing to say. I got nothing to say.”
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OMG, Obama joked about the Air Farce One flight that scared the hell out of New Yorkers. Remember how he said he was so outraged by the Flyover and now he is joking about it. That of course was ALL LIES and his joking about it proved it to the world that caught this dinner last night.
Watching the videos you can notice something. Not all are laughing or smiling, maybe it is just me but I have a gut feeling there was a high percentage in his audience that did NOT vote for Obama and especially when he went after Rush Limbaugh there was a lot of silence and non laughter and even some booing.
This was so disgraceful! Barack Obama is a low-class street hustler. That’s how he got where he is today. He is amoral, narcissistic, power-hungry and just plain evil. has NO sense of humor at all. His sense of humor consists of mean, snide remarks that he thinks are funny. He is NOT a nice person. He’s mean and hateful.
The dinner last year with Bush was very funny, the jokes all had a response and Bush was a natural with comedy and having a good time and sense of humor. There is something about Obama, his coldness and detachment to humans it is just weird. He is all the things I have called him and the ones I have not posted here that I say offline but he is more then that. He was the perfect puppet for Soros, someone that had already been molded to hate America to love communism and to love himself more then anyone else. His ego is bigger then I have ever seen in anyone.
Glenn Beck said during this last week he had been dreading this all week.
Now for the feel good stuff hahaha Bush was great at this LOL
President George Bush at his last White House Correspondents Dinner
This one was a classic LOL
President George Bush at White House Correspondents Dinner 2006…with impersonator is saying his thoughts.
I am so looking forward to this entire administration hanging from the gallows.
I don’t recognise my own country anymore. It is consumed by hatred and jealousy at the expense of the country’s well being.
Racism is pc if you are Black.
Here’s Islamobama yukking it up for face time before the press when the son of a a bitch sat giggling at the White House during the New York fly by he authorized, very funny indeed, you Marxist bastard.
cuchieddie/DHS Suspected Terrorist, I
would truly love for that to happen.
Mark, DITTO that!!
Tom, it sure is, it is a huge double
standard.
Jack, I agree, my jaw dropped when I heard
him joke about the Flyover.
PC Free Zone
Bookmarked your post over at Blog Bookmarker.com!
Wanda Sykes is one ugly woman.
What’s da matter! Can dish it out but cry foul when it’s your treasonist talking heads getting slammed?
Sorry boys and girls of the insane right, you’re not doing to Obama what ya did to Clinton.
They act like spoiled children that know no boundries.
Glenn Beck didn’t want to go to this thing, but I’m so glad he did, because he will disect and expose every unfortunate moment.
Cheap shots at conservatives, that was expected. But wow, that joke about the kids taking the joy ride over Manhattan was in really poor taste.
Hey Randy……….yo momma bitch.
Oh and Randy, your messiah is a homo!