Sure, David Cameron has to face question time, but does he do stand-up?
In our land, the president not only carries the nuclear codes, guides social and economic policy, upholds the constitution, wages war and presides over matters of state, once or twice a year he has to deliver one-liners for big laffs from media elites in black tie. This is a sober responsibility, unique to the presidency. Yeah, maybe Vladimir Putin occasionally has journalists bent over holding their sides, but only while they're getting beaten by his goons.
The White House correspondents' dinner, therefore, is arguably an example of what makes America great: a president comfortable enough about his stature and the stability of and democracy not just to crack jokes, but first to sit there grinning while a real comedian has his way with him. In this case, it was chat-show host Jimmy Kimmel dining out on political conflict and administration scandals, such as the General Services Administration's lavish Las Vegas boondoggle, the one with clowns and goodie bags and mind readers.
"If anyone has tickets to the GSA after party," Kimmel said, "the plane is leaving for the Four Seasons in Dubai at midnight on the dot. Don't be late or you'll miss out on your complimentary white tiger cub."
Not bad. But Kimmel's best lines were about Obama's overall political fortunes.
"Mr President, remember when the country rallied around you in hopes of a better tomorrow? That was hilarious."
And, "You know, there's a term for guys like President Obama. Probably not two terms, but …"
Of course, even medieval kings had a fool in court to gently lampoon the monarch. What distinguishes the presidency is the requirement for the jester and His Majesty to switch places. This necessity has resulted in a small but influential joke-industrial complex, supplying gags to every toastmaster-in-chief. Politics is can't-miss subject matter, so the hired guns seldom fail to deliver. The only variable is whether the president will be able to.
Obama, who is a fine writer, a reasonable crooner and a hoopster who, by all accounts, has got a serious game, would seem to be just the Renaissance man for the job. After all, what can't he do?
Well, here's what: he can't negotiate successfully with House Republicans, and he can't read from a scripted series of offstage jokes and be funny doing it.
We first heard him from the wings, where, as he waited to appear, supposedly unbeknownst to him his mic was already open – this a reference to his accidentally on-the-record remark in March to Dmitri Medvedev about arms talks. It was an amusing conceit, but, like his "grand bargain" on deficit reduction, the president couldn't sell it. Very wooden. Very not funny.
"That's it," he snapped, in mock disgust over having to appear, "next year we send Biden." Ugh. It was embarrassing. Yet, when Obama finally did get to the lectern, he was suddenly Bill Maher – minus the laughing at his own jokes.
"We gather during a historic anniversary," he began. "Last year at this time … in fact, on this very weekend, we finally delivered justice to one of the world's most notorious individuals."
Perhaps influenced by the offstage material, the audience was shifting in their seats. Obama had already been accused on triumphalism for political gain on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's killing. Could he possibly be exploiting the correspondents' dinner to take yet another victory lap? Was he missing the entire point of the evening? Then, on the adjacent video screens, came the punch line: a picture of Donald Trump.
Get it? Just a day before announcing Bin Laden's death a year ago, the president had been reduced to providing his Hawaii birth certificate to squelch the stupid birther rumors being retailed by then GOP presidential hopeful Trump.
In his performance Saturday, Obama later obliquely targeted both another vacuous Republican TV star, Sarah Palin, and another insipid kerfuffle – this one over an exotic childhood meal he'd had in Indonesia. "What's the difference between a hockey mom and a pitbull?" he posed. "A pitbull is delicious."
Obama also, naturally, weighed in on the petit-scandalous GSA junket. "Even the mind reader didn't know what they were thinking." But his best jokes were "a quick preview of the secret agenda" for his second term. Excerpts: "In my first term, we ended the war in Iraq. In my second term, I will win the war on Christmas. In my first term, we repealed the policy known as 'Don't ask, don't tell.' In my second term, we will replace it with a policy known as 'It's raining men.'"
Hmmm. Maybe you had to be there – although I certainly wasn't. While watching the president's performance online, I had a grin on my face the whole time, just as I had for George W Bush when he gamely faced a hostile crowd. This is an event I do not attend – because, arguably, it is not an example of what makes America great, but rather an example of what makes inside-the-beltway reporting corrupt.
The press has no business socializing with administration and other government figures, much less bringing them along as guests, to wink-wink, nudge-nudge one another about the jolly sport of it all. Sure, it's great fun to see the zingers fly back and forth, and to see how well the world's most powerful man can channel champion of the one-liner Henny Youngman. But the affair is entirely too cozy, and the format provides politicians too much freedom to neutralize their follies for precisely the crowd on which we depend to expose them.
Swell: the president showed he could tell jokes on himself. But let's face it, he wasn't the one playing the fool.