Pundits "flounce around in costume . ..make light of their problems" - then criticize the PRESIDENT

[EffieBlack]

for responding inappropriately?

A little peek at how the "Why is President Obama doing a town hall meeting in California, going on the Tonight Show" crowd spent last Saturday night (while the President absented himself for a little quality time with his family):

The media just wanted a good cuddle with their golden boy. At the annual Gridiron Club dinner in the grand ballroom of the Marriott Renaissance, the president was supposed to be at the head table, smiling and clapping as the club's journalists flounced around in costume, belting political parodies to the tunes of Rodgers and Hammerstein and Gilbert and Sullivan.

The president, however, had planned to skip the affair to spend time with his family at Camp David. Typical. String 'em along, get elected, go back to the wife. The nerve.

Chins up, Gridiron Club! Your show -- a 124-year tradition of back-patting and ego-pricking accompanied by the U.S. Marine Band -- went on Saturday night without a hitch, save for running nearly an hour behind schedule and earning mixed reviews. People are so hard to please these days.
. . . Then, in dire need of some liquored-up levity, the capital's journalists (laid off, bought out) and politicians (raged at, bailout-weary) sing and eat and drink and doze off and applaud and cringe, making light of their problems.

Here's NBC's Andrea Mitchell in a bear costume introducing a number that lampoons her husband, former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, to the tune of "What I Did for Love" from "A Chorus Line."
. . .
Now, a quick peek backstage, where the Gridiron Club's members are donning costumes, downing drinks and simmering over the president's absence. They're "very upset" and "dissed." Not since Grover Cleveland has a president skipped the dinner in his first year in office. Obama cited family commitments, but it's entirely probable that he didn't want to be seen in white tie and tails at a $300-a-plate dinner of lobster panna cotta, yukking it up with Beltway insiders, while the economy bottoms out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/22/AR2009032200758.html

So after a week of trying to smack President Obama from one end of the beltway to the other, whining about how he hasn't spent every waking minute thinking about, pondering about, worrying about and crying about the economy(always with a perfectly straight face, no smiling or laughing allowed), come Saturday night, the members of the vaunted punditry class drop their mikes and notebooks, shimmy into their finest duds (well, most of them do - Andrea Mitchell puts on a bear costume - or maybe that IS her best outfit), scamper off to a $300-a-plate dinner were they get sloshed, perform skits, and "make light of their problems."

And then, after a day to sleep it off, they're right back at it this morning, second-guessing the President's every move and beating up on him for actually laughing, LAUGHING! during an interview.

These people are absolutely priceless!

[fugop]

1. I love that he didn't go

If they're ripping him up for laughing during an interview, imagine what they'd be saying had he gone and "performed" at the Gridiron bullcrap thing. Seriously - Andrea Mitchell dancing around laughing about her husband's time in charge of our country's finances? Eff them all.

[annabanana]

13. His and her millions should be confiscated. Greenspan's inability

to expect that hogs at a trough would gorge themselves is at the very least criminal negligence.

[Pirate Smile]

2. Great point!

[ErinBerin84]

3. wait what

Is this satire? Was Andrea Mitchell really in a freaking BEAR constume? WTF?

[EffieBlack]

4. Not a satire - the actual goings on at the annual Gridiron Dinner n/t

The press is actually pissed off that the President join them for their laugh riot!

[ErinBerin84]

5. ugh

I wonder if Biden and Obama drew straws over who got to go...I could see neither wanting to go, haha. Though Biden's jokes were funny. But wtf is this establishment stuff tradition anyway? It's disgusting. And so ironic that the press is now trying to make a big deal of Obama laughing at one of Kroft's questions. I remember last year on Keith's show, Keith and Rachel had a discussion about how stupid journalists come off at these types of events, and that year Tim Russert and Andrea Mitchell had gone.

[Jennicut]

6. Biden went in his place and apparently said some good zingers

"Axelrod really wanted me to do this on teleprompter -- but I told him I'm much better when I wing it," Biden said. "I know these evenings run long, so I'm going to be brief. Talk about the audacity of hope. President Obama does send his greetings, though. He can't be here tonight -- because he's busy getting ready for Easter. He thinks it's about him."

"Now let's see: we have a Republican speaker who was born in Austria, and tonight's Democratic speaker was born in Canada," Biden observed. "Folks, this is Lou Dobbs' worst nightmare.

"I understand these are dark days for the newspaper business, but I hate it when people say that newspapers are obsolete. That's totally untrue. I know from firsthand experience. I recently got a puppy, and you can't housebreak a puppy on the Internet."

"You know, I never realized just how much power Dick Cheney had until my first day on the job. I walked into my office, and you know how the outgoing president always leaves the incoming president a note in his desk? I opened my drawer and Dick Cheney had left me Barack Obama's birth certificate."

I'd like to address some of the things I said: Like when I said that 'JOBS' is a three-letter word. I did say that. But I didn't mean it literally. It's like how, right now, most people think AIG is a four-letter word," he said. "Or when I announced our stimulus package website, I was asked how you get to it: All I said was I didn't know the website number. What I really meant to say was, 'Ted Stevens didn't tell me what tube the website is in.'"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/22/biden-lampoons-obama-at-g_n_177775.html

:rofl:

[Aloha Spirit]

7. Ha! Earning his keep! Remember the Alfred E Smith Memorial Dinner? i thought it was obvious Obama

wasn't really enjoying himself... not his thing.
Biden however.... a born performer.

[Uzybone]

8. A millionaire press corps is bad for our country

I firmly believe so. These idiots are all completely out of touch, yet they claim to speak for the people. They only speak for those who are already rich.

[Kalyke]

9. A vast, vast majority of journalists are no where near millionaires.

Most are scraping to get by.

Although their work can also often make them into minor celebrities, most reporters in the United States and the United Kingdom earn relatively low salaries. It is not uncommon for a reporter fresh out of college working at a small newspaper to make $20,000 annually or less. But according to the 2006 survey of journalism/mass communication graduates released in August 2007 by Dr. Lee B. Becker (University of Georgia), the average starting salary for a daily newspaper reporter in 2006 was $26,000, and the average salary at a weekly newspaper was $22,880. The average salary in radio was $23,400, while the average salary in broadcast television was $21,840, and in cable television $25,012. Despite many college students' perceptions that newspapers pay the most poorly, both dailies and weeklies are paying more than broadcast television, which actually pays the poorest of any mass communication industry or profession (advertising graduates got $26,988 and public relations graduates got $28,964 in 2006).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporter

[Uzybone]

11. Yeah because the OP is talking about the average reporter

I sure there were a lot of journalism graduates at the Gridiron dinner. I guess everything has to be spelled out for some folks.

I am talking about the millionaires.

[BeyondGeography]

10. Great one from Granholm re. Palin

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm said that former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska, "really set back the cause of hot governors."

Then, with an eye on Pennsylvania's chief executive, Granholm added: "You know where I'm coming from, Ed Rendell."

[annabanana]

12. The villagers are looking worse and worse to those of us out here

in America. How long can they dance? How long will the music play?

[Mira]

14. So very highly recommended- and kicked, too. Thank you EffieBlack. N/T

[janx]

15. How perfectly AWFUL!

I've always detested that event. The jokes are pathetic. I'm so glad President Obama opted out of that.