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Obama's 6 Funniest Moments from the Correspondents' Dinner
The Comedian-in-Chief made an appearance on Friday at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association Dinner. From a steamed Rahm Emanuel to an awkward Brian Williams, few emerged unscathed. Watch the video highlights.
No Punches Pulled Here
Obama reserved his sharpest jabs for the dinner guests, making jokes at the expense of Chuck Todd’s facial hair, traditional media’s battle to stay relevant in an increasingly online world, and, in a joke that rose like a lead balloon, the media industry’s struggle to stay financially solvent.
“Brian Williams is Actually a Terrible Houseguest.”
Obama joked about his recent Brian Williams Inside the Obama White House special. The jokes, however funny they were, did conjure up some disturbing mental images—exactly how cozy did Williams and Obama get during the shoot?
Roast Rahm at Your Own Risk
Joe Biden, Larry Summers, and Rahm Emanuel were among the White House staffers roasted by Obama. The president probably should have left his chief of staff alone, however—it’s never a good idea to anger someone who can deliver a grand jeté to the head.
“What Would a Wise Latino Do?”
There was the briefest of lulls in jokes when Obama said he was proud of his Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor. But he dove right back in with a demonstration of the difference between empathy and sympathy.
Guantanamo Bay: Only Funny for Harold and Kumar
It’s hard to tell whether Obama’s Guantanamo jokes met with tepid laughs because the subject is so controversial, or because the jokes themselves were too oblique. One referred to the Uighurs, and another to the relocation of 13 detainees to Palau. Hint: if you have to Google it to get it, it’s not a good joke.
“I’m Not the Salesman-in-Chief.”
Media wasn’t the only troubled industry to get kicked while it was down. Obama also turned his gimlet eye on the auto companies. Channeling Oprah, he said, “If you look under your seat, you’ll find that…you get a car company! You get a car company! And Fox, you get AIG! Enjoy!”
The Daily Beast Video curates the most essential and entertaining video, and brings you original and exclusive productions from our talented contributors.
How Rich People Smoke Pot
Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
Justice Clinton?
As vice chairman of Public Strategies and president of Maverick Media, Mark McKinnon has helped meet strategic challenges for candidates, corporations and causes, including George W. Bush, John McCain, Governor Ann Richards, Charlie Wilson, Lance Armstrong, and Bono. McKinnon is co-chair of Arts & Labs, a collaboration between technology and creative communities that have embraced today's rich Internet environment to deliver innovative and creative digital products to consumers.
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February 7: 8 Best Moments from Sunday Talk
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oliverckerr
The Iranian people clearly voted for new leaders. They were defrauded. Ahmadinejad remains in power. He is a holocaust denier, intent on developing a nuclear bomb while claiming to his people it is their right to develop nuclear power to replace diminishing oil.
What will happen in the event Ahmadinejad develops a nuclear device - a weapon? He will attempt to bomb Tel Aviv. Were he successful how many innocent people, Moslems, Jews, Israelis, Arabs - how many might die?
And in that event, would the Israelis wipe that whole country off the face of the earth? Yes they would. And how many innocent Iranians would die? Millions.
What is happening there is a blessing from Allah. because the Creator of the Universe does not shine well on those who claim they are His servants when clearly they are not. Think Jimmy Swaggart. Think the Mullahs and their ruling Ayatollah.
The majority of the Iranian people are liable to draw that same conclusion.
Their government, like the North Korean government is absent even a shard of legitimacy because the Mullahs do not represent Allah.. The right words, in the right order from our president could stop the Mullahs in their tracks! Except Barky Obama doesn't have the words.
We elected a winner, not a leader. The man who wears eye shadow for all his tele prompted sprechens does not have a clue what to say or do, so he says nothing. Of course his media buddies rubber stamp that.
Last night was the perfect time for five sharp minutes in Farsi, from our president to the Mullahs and the Iranian people, but not being an actual leader of the people, Barky Obama is clueless what to say or do.
michaelslevinson dot commie knows exactly what needs to be said and what we should do.
oliverckerr
With the election of the eye shadow wearing Barky Obama we have turned the page on the pigment impediment. But our Obama, though he ran on, "change," with the 'politishinz' controlling the exercise of power, nothing changes. Obama is just the democrat's version.
The golf course trumps any world class speech, airing world wide, on behalf of the Iranian people who clearly wanted to throw the Holocaust denier out. Where is Mr. Golden-tongue whose eyes are shadow painted and whose tongue it turns is tele-prompter governed.
This Iranian issue is / was an opening to neutralize and disenfranchise a stalinist regime that hides behind a religion spiked by money grabbing Mullahs. An opportunity passes for a world class speech playing world wide. Because we are leaderless nothing of consequence is spoken on behalf of freedom.
From the Mullahs' point of view Bush v. Gore was fixed so why not theirs, too. We could devise a fail safe fraud free method of voting leading the way for every other nation to adopt or adapt, so their people would be confident and believe in the result, but for one prob limb: 535 lords and ladies who are knot by any stretch going to allow it.
Another comment by the blacklisted poet author of prophetic works, none other than words from michaelslevinson dot commie, the web site devoted to the man with words for all mankind, the guy who with one seven minute speech could stop all the Mullahs in their tracks, the guy this administration and your standing FCC bureaucracy will never allow to be heard in USA. You imagine you have a First Amendment but that is in name only. When one is denied all are denied.
Every third person to visit michaelslevinson.com gets an FBI echo in their telephone for a couple three days in the FISA court window. Nothing to fear with the FBI's telephone party line, it's only J. Edgarina's minions wanting to find out who you are.
glanger100
Anybody else wonder whether oliverckerr needs to be visited by the FBI. He sound a lot like the psycho who murdered Dr. Tiller. These people are more dangerous than al Q.
Oliver - do you think you are influencing anyone with your comments? Does the true, correct meaning of words you use have any relevance to you?
Please put on some eye shadow so you look less mean, vindictive, intolerant and hateful. That way more independents will listen to you and realize how ridiculous and uneducated you sound.
Oh, I think the CIA planted listening devices in your fillings - watch out!!
mmmk11
both sides have great support in iran , no one has majority , if usa show support for one 1/2 of population , the other 1/2 will be alienated forever. i came from former yugoslavia, one of many countries 'liberated' by the usa gov - i wish you had left us alone - we would fight our own fights ....
oliverckerr
g langer your remarks are ugly and insulting, suggesting that I sound like the poor soul who murdered Dr. Tiller. The only thing "murderous" is your post, an attempt to murder my rights, in this case, the privilege of my post.
I'm not in the shadows like you. I don't do eye shadow. Nor am I mean, intolerant, or hateful. Vindictive is a prob limb. When I was younger I was a little vindictive, righteous bordering on the self-righteous, but I got over that years ago. I'm warm and friendly.
You want to lump me with the anti-abortion fanatics. That is an erroneous assumption. On the contrary, I subscribe to this "hot button" which you can find on the michaelslevinson.com web site beneath a photograph of the poet. this is Lev in his own words and I agree 100%
"A woman's abortion right is another "hot button" issue. I hold that Roe v. Wade is poorly written law, but I''m firmly behind the concept that a woman is in charge of her own body, and whether or not her egg is fertilized and grows into a baby born of her womb is her business, not mine. The law protecting a women's right is well settled! I will nominate for judgeship those who share my respect and love of the law."
"I will protect and respect all those women who refuse to carry their babies, at the same time run a White House office promoting birthing and adoption. I will vigorously push the funding, world wide, of all birth control and contraception programs. I fully support more stem cell research, full stream ahead!"
"Souls un-bodied are eyeless, yet we believe they sea us; they are earless, but they here. That's why we talk to them. Souls are a memory. They live on forever. The soul in a stem cell, on the way to a stainless trash bin, is a temporary hire, pitching in."
"Those who cry out the loudest against abortion, they are the ones who were aborted in a previous life, and the experience is stamped in their characters. Recollect when you were growing up, hanging out with the group, one kid spouted, "You were an abortion." The "abortion" kid was outraged, mad at the tag and bristled, "What id you say?" "
"We spit out the truth without forethought, off the tops of our heads. Your brain is a pane. The mind is that place inside your head where words form. When a woman cries out she is knot going to carry the baby, that is the LAN' Lord uh pin Heaven moving through her."
"God is in charge of the souls he installs, that particular soul, a lifetime back, might have been the Auschwitz guard who kicked the toddlers, cracking their baby ribs on their toddle into the cyanide showers. God is the universal ripper, ripping His most recalcitrant of souls, those He deems the worst, at least a thousand times over."
(glanger! I can't help it if you was an abortion over and over fifteen times at least in fifteen almost lives. I'm not in charge of that stuff unstuffed).
ritamary
oliverckerr, please remember the spell checker is not always correct. "Knot" and "not" are not interchangeable; "prob limb" is not the same as "problem".
BasPos
When will TDB shut down people like this? It may feed their paranoia, but at least he/she cannot spread their insanity to like idiots.
Also, this is so clearly off-topic that it should be removed.
ritamary
In the name of free speech do we have to put up with oliverckerr's babbling? He has hijacked this thread. Please, oliverckerr, get back on your meds.
reelfeel
At least our President has a sense of humor and a sense to do the right thing. President Obama knows history and if he knows what happened between the U.S. and Iran in the past he is strategically and thoughtfully planning ahead like Bobby Fisher in a chess game. Your Bushy Buddies and Rushies are as ignorant as you are. That's why there is so much hate for America. You are fuel that wants burn the bridge down. You just want war and profits and sit there and actually claim your fighter of freedom. You are the enabler backwards thinking in your minority ignorant camp. Stay down at your mother's attic!
fightforliberty1
Obama is no different than Bush he is a joke a fake and a Bildeburger that is who he takes his orders from, he could careless about the American people, do your research and look at what is going on in this country and the world, THE NEW WORLD ORDER, Wake UP and quit being a nation of uneducated, tunnelvision dimwits, and a future new world order SLAVE.
sophia5
Chuck Todd is such a creepy looking dude.
Notice Chris Matthews gazing lovingly
at the President.
Nice to see Willy Geist in the crowd.
Love him on Morning Joe.
Love Morning Joe, the best show on television,
and the only objective watchable show on
the General-Electric-In-The-Tank-for-Obama-Network.
The Mika Brzezinski / Joe Scarborough, left / right,
dynamic is engaging, smart, and funny, with
Willie the acting court jester.
gak001
Off topic much?
Where's the spam button?
mclaubr1
For once, realize that the approach you wish for failed during the last eight years. Go back to your bunker with Rush, Newt and Cheney. We do not need your venom or opinion.
oliverckerr
I don't wish. What you "wish" for will never happen. You do for yourself. My approach has nothing to do with the last eight years. My untested approach is to turn the "boob tube" into an art form, that, beyond the scope of your imagination.
I don't associate, bunk or bunker with the likes of Rush, Newt and Cheney. That is insulting and uncalled for. Cheney believes in torture. Where is there any suggestion of torture in the above or any of my writings? Newt is a hypocrite and Limbaugh a racist. There isn't anything in the above comment that relates to them.
The only "venom" is yours. It's not my fault you were a snake in a previous life.
Redhead5050
A good sense of humor and an incredibly intelligent and articulate leader...so glad we have Obama!!!!
sophia5
Will the people be laughing if Obama's economic
policy bankrupts this country?
He studied Constitutional Law, but what does
he know about economics?
Yah, Yah, George Bush is a Buffoon and he and
the Republicrats caused much of the mess we're in,
but Obama's spending will surpass all 43 of his
predecessors COMBINED.
martykz
Soph - Pick up an economics textbook of your choice and review the differences between spending and investing. Only then will you stop falling prey to the irrational demagogues who refuse to credit Mr. Obama.
glanger100
oliver, please tell us what you do or what you have studied that makes you so absolutely certain of your definitive, absolute statements. otherwise, how else are we to evaluate the knowledge base that leads you to such outrageous and disputable statements? I'm trying not to believe you are just a crank (see "Idiot America").
oliverckerr
My own studies are far and wide. There was Johnson and Boswell. There is Lev and Oliver C. Kerr. I, Kerr am not the issue here. Lev is. Visit michaelslevinson dot commie and see the videos. He is a living prophet with words for all man kind. He is hardly a crank. Nor am I.
What I am doing is gathering the works of Michael Stephen Levinson. He is going to be assassinated. He will not be allowed to speak in this country. But he intends on speaking, regardless of some very nasty domestic counter intelligence people, and when chatting with me he says stuff like, "I don't leave home without my Wonder Woman bracelets."
I'm leaving something out. How he intends on making a nationwide speech. I am not at liberty to tell you what he is doing to accomplish that. He believes the bullet will fly after he speaks, within the first 48 hours. I believe they will take him down before he gets that far.
He told me that while he was writing "New World Hors D'oeuvres," in one particular Starbucks, that this guy showed up, sat next to him, and they became friends. They would meet once a week, or every other week. The guy was a sub-contractor for Halliburton, purchasing generators for Iraq.
One Sunday, Lev remarked he might go to Chile. The Halliburton sub-contractor grabbed him on the forearm and held him real hard, and said, "You can't leave."
Lev said, "What do you mean, I can't leave? Why not?
The contractor guy said, "As soon as you step over the border it will be a matter of hours and you will be dead meat. because once you leave it is only a matter of money. They are going to kill you just like that. But as long as you are here, it is not so easily accomplished. Don't go."
Lev says, "Then he eased his grip on my forearm. It was the last time i ever saw him. In retrospect it was almost as if he came there to meet me, befriend me, tell me what he told me, and then he was gone."
Go to the web site and look at the story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum. Realize there are 109 pages that follow that, in double columns, that Lev can recite. He is the only living person on the planet with that kind of talent: a work of art written down for all man kind together at once.
Go ahead. Then talk about it to your friends on the telephone and press the phone to your ear and hear the echo that is the FBI putting you on their 3 day Fisa window party line to find out who you are. (They monitor every visit to the Lev web site).
Go ahead. Don't be afraid. I have every confidence you will not - cannot dispute what I say.
Hawnzz
Oh... it's good to see some humor in all the gloom. Even for one night, it helps us all.
oliverckerr
I enjoyed it. He is not a professional comic, so he did not quite deadpan the line about his previous commitment to taking Michelle out for dinner - to eat Thai food . . . in Bangkok. The line about Joe's Scaborough and Biden was funny, because it was true.
I was a personally pleased to find out he has a collection of Plastic man comic books. I have read some Plastic Man.
Lev tells me Barky has comic books that he (Lev) first read sixty years ago!
I like Barky Obama. I like him. He is a winner. The leadership the world requires is above his pay grade, that's all. Note Barky is greying fast from the pressure. That is why he flies away to do a meaningless, time eating 'Town Hall' meetings. The pressure.
Everything he does / they do takes into account two elements: Mr. Web Soft-money, that fellow or gal in the lobby who, like the original Plastic Man, slips every lock and slides every gate, representing Money&Power, the people behind, whose ducats stuff the gullets of the 535, to fund their "runs" for reelection.
Primary are the government bureaucracies with their own self-created codified place at our table.
Levinson created a Vehicle for World Peace. I wonder where Obama stands on the idea of Levinson performing his multi-lingual poem, on whirled wide television, like old blind Homer, from dusk until dawn.
The Book ov Lev It A Kiss is a work of prophetic art, with a couple dozen world events described in advance, written down to perform - on television.
I wonder where Barky stands, relative to that.
One thing is for sure, the domestic intelligence bureaucracy will violate our laws and do whatever it takes to insure you never see this man perform live, from his creative works, otherwise he would have turned his one-liner in Time Magazine into the front cover years ago and it would be clear his Time was coming, not a cop with a throw away gun strapped to his ankle demanding entry into Lev house!!
glanger100
this guy is deranged. please, nobody comment further.
oliverckerr
glanger baby you are such a loser. A descriptive phrase like "Vehicle for World Peace" and "whirled" as in "world wide" television really rubs you. You are incensed by the story of Adman and Even in the Gar Den ov Edum, which all the other posters positively love. You need to stay on your meds.
Ritarita
Oliver-
You said you are not the issue here.
Lev is the issue here.
Why is Lev the issue here?
That's not right.
Again- I don't want to be mean
But coming on this site to turn the pages
Into a self promotional tract
Is unbecoming.
And you already know my feelings
About having to scroll through
44 paragraphs.
oliverckerr
As far as I am concerned World Peace is an overriding issue, and as far as I can tell, Lev is the only dude on the planet with a viable approach to same. A program meant to involve all the world's peoples at once is hardly "self" promotional, but is a "Lev" program.
"If is a riff
I wanna good life
Nod a good if"
If you don't want to be mean, then don't be.
It is unbecoming. Knot ultimate "S."
Seems to me in the 44 paragraphs there is a repeat, in English, of what Lev prepared to tell the Holy Imam Ayatollah Khomieni, in 1980. You ought to visit the youtube.com/poetprophet and look at his speech on New Hampshire Public Television. In the 2nd or 3rd segment he repeats his "wrap' for the Ayatollah.
He is not Marlon Brando, but he takes a Kangol Beret, worn to the side, turns it around, fluffs it up, and looks like a young Ayatollah.
Lev says he could renew that little speech with a current add on, and give all the Mullah's pause, but the solution lies elsewhere - exactly what we need to do, as a nation, to turn the situation around in Iran without US meddling.
He sent me an email and says he is going to work on that tonight, an op-ed that has nothing to do with him, but everything to do with us, yet because he is a black listed poet, (the only one in the whole country) and the domestic counter intelligence aristocrats in the Fascist Bureaucracy Ink have 'their' people in every noose paper in the country, as soon as those people see his name, the article will be in the trash.
I'm sorry you choose to stand with glanger and baspos. I make no guarantee but I will certainly try to post where you aren't. That way you do not have complaint. Good bye ritarita
Ritarita
Oh Oliver-
Don't be dramatic.
Just keep it shorter.
oliverckerr
Dear Tina Brown,
You cannot beat the story line on this page. What a flow.
Thank you.
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