President Barack Obama poked fun at himself Saturday night at the Gridiron Club dinner in Washington D.C. It seems there has been some recent argumentation between long-time journalist Bob Woodward and the White House staff, reports Reuters on Sunday, March 10.
Obama made light of the scuffle over an email. In fact, he poked fun at himself. "Can anybody tell me when an administration has ever regretted picking a fight with Bob Woodward?” President Obama dead-panned. "What's the worst that could happen?"
Well, quite a lot. Obama was referring to the Watergate scandal, and how Bob Woodward, reporting for the Washington Post, helped to being Richard Nixon’s presidency down. Never, in other words, count Bob Woodward out, as economic advisor Gene Sperling has recently tended to do.
This is the sort of ribbing and inside joking Gridiron Dinners are famous for, and President Obama holds his own well in the elite crowd of writers and Washington insiders. He went on to crack jokes about several other people.
Funniest was when President Obama stopped speaking, reached casually for a nearby water glass, and drank from it. “That, Marco Rubio, is how you take a sip of water,” he said, and the crowd laughed. If the Florida senator learns from his ungraceful lunge at a water bottle during his own speech after the State of the Union Address, and makes it a joke on himself, he may go as far in politics as Barack Obama, himself.
Taylor Swift could learn from the occasion, too. Oscar quips, like those made at the Gridiron Club, are meant to be taken in fun. It’s a joke, after all.
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