2009 WH Correspondents Dinner

This past weekend President Barack Obama hosted his first White House Press Correspondents dinner. Members of the beltway, the Hollywood elite, and top politicians all attended the dinner. However, President Obama surely did not hit a homerun with year's dinner. He started off alright with his little joke about the every member of the Press voting for him. How sad. He told a really awful joke about Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, of which garnered awkward attention from the audience. Now, I do applaud him for not using his teleprompter....but maybe that would have helped? Moving on, there was more hesitated laughter when he joked about heading to Iowa and marrying Senior Advisor David Axlerod. President Obama of all people should know that in the presence of the Media, you must always be politically correct. He did lighten up a little bit halfway through, and told what I believe was his most humorous joke of the night when mentioning to GOP Chairman Michael Steele that the Republican Party cannot have a bailout and that Rush Limbaugh didn't qualify as a troubled asset. Now, I love my party and enjoy listening to Rush, but you can't deny that wasn't at least a little funny. More remarkably, President Obama got almost no reaction or laughter when joking about former Vice President Cheney. Towards the end of his "act," President Obama touched on some more humorous rhetoric that also received warm welcomes from the audience when talking about Hillary Clinton and Arlene Spector. Nice job Mr. President.

Unfortunately, the bombshell of the evening was Ms. Wanda Sykes. I was so disappointed. In the movies that Ms. Sykes has appeared in, I liked her work. But at the dinner, the gloves came off and she tanked. You'll even find that the White House will mostly begin to distance themselves after her remarks. I mean, come on. Poking fun at someone is harmless, but wishing them to die is just plain unacceptable.

Good luck next year Mr. President.