Cheered by Hollywood stars, President Barack Obama lampooned Mitt Romney's wealth and mimed a shaggy dog story about his foe, striking a rare light note in the bitter White House race.
Obama used an annual star-studded dinner with White House correspondents and Hollywood A-listers, which presidents use to rip their rivals, to take a few gentle shots at Romney, before the two rivals face off for the presidency.
He riffed off the hit movie the "Hunger Games" to poke Romney's hard bore Republican primary approach which he said saw "wealthy sponsors" brutally savage each other until only one contestant is left standing.
I'm sure this was a great change of pace for him," Obama joked before a crowd of 2,000 journalists and celebrities.Said Kimmel: “When I think ‘Mitt Romney,’ I don’t think Etch a Sketch — I think of Twister. You can’t even play Monopoly with him, because he keeps putting the dog on the car.”Off the dais, elites mingled with elites. Kate Hudson was next to former secretary of state Colin Powell and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). Sofia Vergara of “Modern Family” and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) cracked each other up and posed for photos together. When the dessert course arrived, Vergara ate half her mousse. Christie cleaned his plate.And he took aim at Sarah Palin, mocking her famous line from the 2008 convention as well as Republican criticism of him for eating dog meat while a boy in Indonesia. “What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull?” Mr. Obama asked. “A pit bull is delicious.” (Even Michelle Obama looked askance at that one.)
He took a jab at Congress, thanking lawmakers who “took a break from their exhausting schedule of not passing any laws to be here tonight.” He teased Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was photographed dancing and drinking a beer at a club during a visit to Colombia. “She won’t stop drunk-texting me from Cartagena,” the president said.
And of course, he ribbed his own security detail after the prostitution scandal involving the Secret Service on that same trip to Colombia, declaring that he had to leave early because “I have to get the Secret Service home in time for their new curfew.”
Mr. Kimmel also went after the Secret Service during his routine. “I do have a lot of jokes about the Secret Service,” he said. “You know, I told them for $800 I wouldn’t tell them, but they only offered 30.” Matt Apuzzo, Adam Goldman, Eileen Sullivan and Chris Hawley of The Associated Press, for winning the Edgar A. Poe Award for their stories about the New York City Police Department's widespread surveillance of Muslims after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It's the fourth major prize for the series, which has also won the Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting, the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting and a George Polk Award.
ABC's Jake Tapper and Politico's Glenn Thrush, Carrie Budoff Brown, Manu Raju and John Bresnahan, for winning the Merriman Smith Award for excellence in presidential coverage under pressure. Tapper won in the broadcast category for breaking the news that rating agency Standard & Poor's was on the verge of downgrading the federal government's triple-A credit rating because of concerns over political gridlock in Washington. In the print category, Thrush, Budoff Brown, Raju and Bresnahan of Politico won for their report on the deal between Obama and congressional Republicans to raise the U.S. debt ceiling.
Scott Wilson, of The Washington Post, for winning the Aldo Beckman award. Wilson was recognized for his "deeply reported and nuanced stories, his evocative writing and his clear presentation of complex issues, particularly on the foreign policy front."
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