The Gridiron Menu: A Buffet of Guffaws
At the Bipartisan Roast, One-Liners Rule
By Linda Hales
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, March 7, 2004; Page D01
For last night's Gridiron Club dinner, the president was absent but accounted for down at the ranch. The Democrats took the opportunity to unleash the political equivalent of a WMD: Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The junior senator from New York swept through the front doors of the Capital Hilton just before Vice President Cheney, the ranking Republican, who came in through a side entrance. Clinton wore a formidable black satin coatdress that reached the floor and made her look like a companion to Darth Vader. Cheers erupted from tourists in the hotel lobby. Visiting children snapped digital pix. A baseball was thrust, and she signed. A grown woman swooned. If Clinton said nothing to her fans, it was only because, on the night of her first Gridiron Club speech -- an honor accorded presidents and future contenders -- she had lost her voice.
"I have a limited strategic objective," she whispered gamely on her way to the ballroom . "To conserve my voice."
And yet. Somewhere amid the rhinestone buttons, or in an aide's pocket, were a series of one-liners designed to demolish, if not the Bush administration's policies, at least any resistance to laughter at the elite journalism club's 119th dinner roast.
"In the Clinton administration, we used to say in eight years, we've added more than 22 million new jobs," she said, offering Bush a lesson in campaign spin. "You guys could say: 'Since 1993, our country has created 19 million new jobs.' " The Clinton administration also used to say it had "moved millions from welfare to work," to which Bush could add, she quipped, "We've made that journey round trip."
Clinton acknowledged Cheney, who was sitting in for the president at the head table. "I actually saw the vice president as we were walking in," she said. "I was getting out of my car . . . he was getting out of Justice Scalia's."
There was more. "The truth is, I know Vice President Cheney, and I know that he believes in the separation of the three powers: Kellogg . . . Brown . . . and Root."
After the petit fours, Cheney fired back. "I always feel a genuine bond whenever I see Senator Clinton," he countered. "She's the only person who's the center of more conspiracy theories than I am."
He recalled attending a Wyoming Gridiron. "Out there, between courses, they exchange small arms fire," he said.
As for the president, Cheney said, "He's at the Iraqi Gridiron dinner -- white tie and turbans."
One-liners are always on the menu at Washington's answer to a late-night show. Every spring, members of the club -- 60 of Washington's leading print scribes, especially those who can sing -- entertain the top ranks of government and legions of high-profile sources with satire and songs. Invited to sit alongside Cheney were most of the Cabinet, one Joint Chief, a Supreme Court justice and ambassadors from Saudi Arabia and France. In the audience were assorted newspaper editors, bureau chiefs and political correspondents, corporate chieftains, labor leaders and other politicos. The president, or a stand-in, and one representative from the Republican and Democratic parties, are invited to speak. Everyone present is supposed to adhere to a strict ground rule: "Singe, but never burn."On his way in the door, Jack Valenti, a frequent Gridiron guest, called the event "the Nobel Prize of Washington high jinks. It's nonpartisan. They make fun of everybody."
He was treated to an evening of skits lampooning Halliburton, the hunt for Osama, gay marriage, presidential advisers, Democratic primary candidates and a certain former first lady, who was portrayed in Elizabethan neck ruff as Her Royal Highness Hillary.
This year, an impartial observer might deduce that the joke was on the Gridiron. Instead of grinning through the four-hour, white-tie roast, Bush hunkered down at the Crawford ranch with Mexican President Vicente Fox. That gave Gridiron president Al Hunt, columnist for the Wall Street Journal and a television commentator, his opening: "That pretty much sums up the White House philosophy: Why waste time with newspaper reporters when you can spend quality time with Fox?"
Bush's presumptive campaign foe, John Kerry, poured his own hot salsa on Gridiron egos. Kerry, the dinner's other high-profile no-show, was also in Texas, on a campaign blitz of the South. Who could blame him for escaping from the people who keep describing him as Lincolnesque and quizzing him about Botox.
Democratic strategist James Carville, on his way to dinner, noted that Kerry "needs to spend time in the South." When asked about the Botox, he took the hit for the candidate: "I don't have any Botox in this beautiful face."
The rest of the Gridiron's comic relief came from former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, invited to deliver the Republican counterpunch. Along with Cheney, Hunt described his choice of speakers as "a senator who wants to be president, a mayor who wants to be king, and a vice president who already is both."
Affecting his best "Godfather" rasp (as well as a big cigar), Giuliani intoned: "I want to thank Al Hunt for organizing this meeting so we could make peace with Hillary."
Giuliani staged a multimedia show (was that Hillary in a Yankees cap?) and offered an oblique compliment to Kerry. Anticipating that a 2004 Democratic victory could close the door to a newcomer until 2012, Giuliani suggested: "I fully expect that come this November, when all is said and done, behind the sanctity of the voting booth curtain, I and Mrs. Clinton will be voting for the same person: George W. Bush. And I'm guessing so is Terry McAuliffe. And possibly even Bill Clinton, too."
As happens in the news biz, key players were reduced to bit parts. Howard Dean had been the subject of a prominent skit. After his disastrous primary season, the writers reduced the former Democratic front-runner to a minor scream. But Dean had the courage to accept an invitation. And he agreed to belt out a solo (to the tune of "On Wisconsin"): "In Wisconsin, in Wisconsin, I had my last chance. Edwards, Kerry played too dare-y. And they beat the pants right off me. I'm a dreamer, I'm a screamer. But I got what I want. I kicked Kerry's butt in the Republic of Vermont."
In one of the spicier skits, Robert Novak, the columnist who revealed the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame, starred in a skit about the incident, called "Once I had a Secret Source." Lyrics recall the outing of "a girl spy," thanks to a secret source "who lived within the great White House." The song follows up with, "Cross the right wing you may try / Bob Novak's coming after you."
In an era of heightened disclosure, it must be said that much of this report is based on leaked documents. Other sources include eyewitnesses, insiders, highly placed sources and experienced observers, who unless named have demanded anonymity. That's because the Gridiron insists on claiming executive privilege. Working press members are excluded from the dinner, though not from a dress rehearsal. Freedom from scrutiny is said to enable leaders to loosen their ties or worse with people who otherwise devote their lives to defending the public's right to know, especially about people on the public payroll. Which is always the best joke of the night.
The postmortems can also be funny. When asked how his evening had gone, Dean swore he "thoroughly enjoyed it." But he wasn't smiling. Clinton made similar noises with what was left of her voice. Gridiron member Jack Nelson, former bureau chief of the Los Angeles Times, offered a composite review, based on representative sampling with more than the usual margin of error. Clinton had not been "self-deprecating enough." Giuliani was funny at the start, but flat at the end and ran on too long. Cheney was simply "hilarious."
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said she enjoyed them all, but only had instant recall of Clinton's best line: "I'm Hillary Clinton, and the State of the Union is strong."
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, who was introduced as the man who handed Bush the "Social Security tar baby," accepted birthday wishes -- he turned 78 -- and offered thanks to the club for staging such a great party for him. Then he asked to be off the record. Someone surmised that Clinton's voice had been done in "because Rudy gave her the cigar to smoke."
According to Hunt, the president never officially declined the Gridiron's invitation. Nor did Ralph Nader. Perhaps the perpetual presidential candidate knew he would be portrayed on stage as a skunk. He needn't feel dissed. The Dennis Kucinich character, who appeared in a giant carrot costume, was reduced to rabbit food.
As Landon Parvin, a longtime Gridiron-goer, observed, "The Gridiron at its best is an escape from political rancor into political fun."
© 2004 The Washington Post Company |
