President Obama trades friendly barbs at Gridiron Club dinner

[steve2470]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/03/13/AR2011031303754.html

Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger
Monday, March 14, 2011

It took three attempts, but the Gridiron Club - a hokey, hallowed vestige of swampland-era Washington - finally got President Obama to show up for its annual dinner Saturday night. And yet, what did the members get? No respect, we tell you - no respect!

The president told the 650 guests at the downtown Renaissance Hotel that they were meeting at a time when "a powerful spirit of change is tearing down old regimes, decaying institutions, remnants of the past."

Pause. "So, look out, Gridiron Club. . . . I mean, look at this get-up. Forget about winning the future. How about entering the present?"

By that point, though, Obama had already been serenaded by a gang of Gridiron members, impersonating the GOP House leadership while dressed as Hells Angels, about how they're "gonna block Barack around the clock," to the tune of the old Bill Haley song.

[Syrinx]

1. this kind of beltway shit makes me sick to my stomach.

[Enthusiast]

2. It doesn't inspire

me to get out my pom poms.

[Vinca]

3. It reminded me of how I felt when George W. Bush was crawling

around the Oval Office looking for weapons of mass destruction . . . while our soldiers were dying in his war of choice.

[whistler162]

4. Agreed President Obama should be sitting in the Rose Garden!

[Mimosa]

5. Soldiers in Afghanistan and people in Japan are dying

Pardon me for not yukking it up.