At last week’s 90th Annual Dinner of the White House Correspondents’ Association, the event merged Hollywood celebrities, Washington’s politicians, an array of journalists – and me. And naturally, I fit in well with the likes of Barbara Walters, Jay Leno and Donald Rumsfeld, not to mention the President of the United States and the First Lady.
As the C-SPAN camera panned on and off me standing nervously when the president was announced, butterflies fluttered in my stomach. No, not because Candice Bergen was standing on the left of me, while Ben Affleck was on my right, or the fact that I was on live TV, but because I was a part of something that I considered spectacular – an event in which my two passions, journalism and politics, were celebrated together.
Sure, rubbing elbows with Drew Barrymore, chatting with victor Bill of the Apprentice and being introduced to Drew Carey was exciting, but watching President Bush speak, to me, was the best imagined experience of the night.
Speaking at the event, Bush uttered lighthearted humor and remarks with a declaration that the nation is in “a period of testing and sacrifice.”
The president began by telling a few jokes, but kept them to a minimum after being criticized because of a joke about weapons of mass destruction. Bush suggested a new format for news conferences from now on: “You can ask the question. I can tell Bob Woodward, and he can tell you.” He continued, “I thought about giving an economic speech tonight. It really gets me when the critics say I haven’t done anything for the economy. Look what I’ve done for the book publishing industry. ‘The Lies of George W. Bush.’ ‘Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them’…I’d like to tell you that I’d read these books, but that would be a lie.”
Bush then grew serious. He said the soldiers in Iraq are “a new generation of Americans as brave and decent as any before it.”
Bush continued, “As I speak, men and women in uniform are taking great risks and so are many journalists being faithful to their own sense of duty.”
When speaking about former professional football player Pat Tillman’s death last month, Bush said Tillman “was modest because he knew there were many like him making their own sacrifices.”
He continued, “They fill the ranks of the armed forces. They are willing to give up their lives and when one is lost a whole world of hopes and possibilities is lost with them. This evening we think of the families who grieve and the families that wait on a loved one’s return.”
Bush was followed by Tonight show host Jay Leno, who poked fun at Washington and the press.
Noting that Bush’s salary remains low at the $400,000 he made last year, Leno said, “He doesn’t do it for the money, he does it for the eight months of vacation each year,” referring to the president’s visits to his Texas ranch.
Referring to John Kerry’s recent back-and-forth contradicting remarks about the war, Leno joked, “If John Kerry is elected, he would be the first president to deliver the State of the Union address and the rebuttal.”
