Politicians, news reporters, comedian and celebrities all flocked to Washington D.C. last week for the 98th annual White House Correspondents Dinner hosted by US President Barack Obama. The hot-ticket event which last year saw the President lampoon business tycoon Donald Trump’s attempts to cast doubt over him being an American citizen, featured more of the same as Obama walked off stage just before he took the podium with an alleged “hot mic,” making fun of getting caught last month on an open microphone with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
Among those in the firing line and on the receiving end of the President’s gags were the opposition, the Republican congressional leadership, whom he thanked “for taking time from their exhausting schedule of not passing any laws” to attend the dinner. Recalling the fact that they were once in competition to win the presidential nomination, Obama turned his attentions to his now Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton quipping, “She can’t stop drunk texting me from Cartagena,” in reference to their recent trip to the Summit of the Americas in Colombia, where Clinton was photographed dancing and having a cold beer.
It wasn’t all fun and games though as the man campaigning to be elected for a second term remembered journalists lost in the field like The New York Times’ Anthony Shadid and Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times who died while covering the uprising in Syria earlier this year, saying, “Never forget that our country depends on you to help protect our freedom, our democracy and our way of life,” Among the attendees who joined the President and the First Lady Michelle Obama at the annual dinner were comedian Jimmy Kimmel, George Clooney, Piers Morgan, Alicia Keys, Rosario Dawson and Kim Kardashian.
