Media Insider 'Gridiron' Dinner with Obama Loaded with Republican-Bashing

March 14th, 2011 8:58 AM

Monday's Washington Post promoted the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday night, complete with pictures of glitzy Katie Couric, Andrea Mitchell, and Arianna Huffington. This media-insider event finally attracted President Obama. There were no cameras allowed, so Obama once again made fun of Speaker John Boehner's skin color:

The president said he used to think the House speaker was tan, but after seeing him tear up so much, he realized: “That’s not a tan — that’s rust!” A Gridiron skit had Fake Boehner singing “It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to,” Lesley Gore-style. (I’m try’n to show them some leadership here / some gravitas and some guts / how did I end up in bed / with all these Tea Party nuts?) 

That was not the only Republican-bashing done inside this liberal media club. Media people dressed up as the Republican presidential field, including Rudy Giuliani in a pink dress, and sang a nasty song:

And with that, a parade of 20 Gridiron members traipsed across the stage, goofily costumed as the 2012 GOP hopefuls —  Romney in a hospital gown, Rick Santorum as an altar boy, Haley Barbour as a Confederate soldier, Michele Bachmann in thigh-high red boots, Rudy Giuliani in a pink ballgown (Don’t get the jokes? Then you’re not as politics-consumed as this audience), and so on.

I’ve seen Huckabee at his weekly weigh-in

Sarah Palin out surveyin’

Eye of Newt and chin of Romney

Guy in drag, that’s Giuliani

Mitt he’s drivin’ fast and far

With man’s best friend strapped to his car  

In 2007, Romney was trashed by animal-rights advocates after he disclosed that during a 1983 family vacation to Canada, he put the family's Irish Setter in a car-top carrier. You can count on the liberal media to keep recirculating any story that they think is damaging to Republicans.

There was also mockery of the whole GOP field by a "mad" Karl Rove character: 

In the Act 2 finale, “Karl Rove” dressed as a mad scientist sang to the Johnny Cash tune, “I’ve Been Everywhere”: I’ve seen every one, man .../ They all wanna run, man / Egos by the ton, man ... 

Nowhere in this Post article is other speakers mocking Obama's enormous ego. There is Obama blaming Rahm Emanuel for his sagging polls, or Kathleen Sebelius joking that she and Mitt Romney both thought health-care reform would advance their careers. Obama had the band play "Born in the USA" as his new theme song. But nothing that would make Obama fans angry. Because the Obama fans and the Gridiron Club seem to be quite coincidental. Or the Post is leaving out the harsh-on-Obama stuff.

Instead, we had the GOP leadership dressed up like the Hell's Angels motorcycle gang:

Obama had already been serenaded by a gang of Gridiron members, impersonating the GOP House leadership while dressed as Hell’s Angels, about how they’re “gonna block Barack around the clock,” to the tune of the old Bill Haley song.

We’re gonna move Obama to the right

We’re gonna mock mock mock his election fight

We’re gonna talk, gonna talk, and then we might indict!  

The gathering also mocked overweight Republicans: Obama said he was grateful for Haley Barbour's support of Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative, but "Haley, when Michelle said you need to run, she didn't mean for President!"

The token GOP speaker, Gov. Mitch Daniels, also got into that act: “Rotator cuff surgery was really a cover story. The truth is I broke a rib traveling to last month’s Governors’ conference. I drew a middle seat between Haley Barbour and Chris Christie . . . I couldn’t get up to go to the bathroom. Their tummies were stuck in the full upright and locked position.”