Obama brings house down at Correspondents’ dinner

Barack Obama took a turn as comic-in-chief at his first White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday, using his 16-minute speech to poke fun at himself, his family, his colleagues and rivals as well as the media.

The US president received rave reviews - and loads of applause from the 2,700-strong crowd of journalists, politicians and Hollywood celebrities - for his biting one-liners at the Hilton Capital hotel.
 
While Obama started his speech with a somewhat laboured dig at himself, announcing that he was going to "speak off the cuff" - just before two autocue screens rose up front of him - he also took a gentle swipe at his God-like image, saying: "I strongly believe my next 100 days will be so successful I will finish them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day I will rest."
 
Having got away with a religious comparison, the president then moved on to even riskier material - 9/11 and race. Obama touched on last month's publicity disaster when White House officials gave the go-ahead for Air Force One to fly very low over Manhatten.

"Sasha and Malia aren't here tonight because they're grounded," he quipped. "You can't just take Air Force One on a joy ride to Manhattan. I don't care whose kids you are."
 
America's first African-American president then teased John Boehner, the Republican leader in the House of Representatives, whose permanent tan, possibly fake, is a source of gossip around Washington. "We have a lot in common. He is a person of colour," Obama said. "Although not a colour that appears in the natural world."
 
Another Republican, former Vice President Dick Cheney, had not made it to the dinner, Obama said, because he was hard at work on his memoirs, 'How to Shoot Friends and Interrogate People'.
 
Members of his own Administration were not spared. Obama and former presidential rival Hillary Clinton had never been closer, the President deadpanned. "In fact the second she got back from Mexico, she pulled me into a hug, and gave me a big kiss and told me I better get down there myself," he said.

Meanwhile Mother's Day (observed yesterday in the US) was a "tough day" for Rahm Emanuel, Obama's infamously profane Chief of Staff.  "He's not used to saying the word 'day' after 'mother'."
 
Among the guests at the $200-a-head black tie event were - to name just a few - Robert De Niro, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Glenn Close, Demi Moore, Forest Whitaker, Eva Longoria, Tyra Banks, Donatella Versace, Sting and Natalie Portman. Even the failed Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin's husband Todd was there, as a guest of the right-wing news channel Fox.
 
"The President exuded a Johnny Carson-like aplomb in delivering lines, chuckling at some of the punchlines as though he appreciated how well his writers' material was going over," declared Entertainment Weekly, while the New York Daily News quipped approvingly: "Ham-in-Chief!".
 
It may have been Obama's night but the final word went to stand-up comic Wanda Sykes. Sykes, an African-American comedian who is known for her forthright take on current events, acknowledged her pride in Obama being America's first black president. "That's unless you screw up," she said, turning to him. "And then it's going to be 'What's up with the half-white guy?'." ·