White House Correspondents Dinner

I attended the White House Correspondents Dinner once in 1998 and felt incredibly out of place. Perhaps it was because I was the only one wearing sneakers with my tuxedo (I wore Converse Chuck Taylor All-Stars all the time in those days, although I did buy a new pair for that night). I was there because Art Brodsky of Communications Daily invited me to join them at their table, which was a long way across the Washington Hilton ballroom from the dais where the president sat.

I didn't go to any of the cocktail parties beforehand, but I did wander around the ballroom before the festivities started to see who else was there, stopping every once in a while when I came across a celebrity who had guested on my radio show in the dozen years I'd been in town (James Carville and Mary Matalin, Connie Chung and Maury Povich, et al). There wasn't as much of an emphasis on bringing Hollywood stars as guests, but it was odd to see such a large gathering of politicians and reporters pretending to get along.

The highlight of the evening was Clinton's speech, which included lots of well-produced visuals and videos. I'm pretty sure my friend Jon Macks, a former political consultant turned monologue writer for Jay Leno, contributed some of the material, and Clinton, with his natural comedic timing, knocked it out of the park. He was followed by Ray Romano, whose sitcom "Everybody Loves Raymond" was beginning to hit its stride in its second season. He wisely stayed away from political material, opting instead for a half-hour of killer stuff from his stand-up act about his family.

Afterwards, most of the crowd moved on to more cocktail parties hosted by Vanity Fair and other media outlets. Since I hadn't been invited to any, I thanked my hosts and walked outside to get to my car, stopping for a moment when I realized I was standing exactly where John Hinkley had been when he took several shots at President Reagan seventeen years earlier. It was pretty odd being there with such a heavy security presence surrounding the area that night.

Tomorrow night, when that same ballroom fills up again for the so-called Nerd Prom, the celebrity quotient will be much higher. Here are some of the stars who have been invited by various media outlets. Many of them have no connection to politics, but get to go as a perk of having a show on a network or its parent company, others simply generate enough star wattage to guarantee free media exposure. At which table would you like to sit?
In 1995, Bill Clinton decided not to give a funny speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner because we were still just ten days removed from Timothy McVeigh blowing up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 19 children and 149 adults. The wound to the American psyche was still too raw, so the president made some somber remarks that night.

The day before, however, there was still a chance Clinton go for the jokes, so Mark Katz, his speechwriter, had worked up a humorous monologue for the president. When it became apparent that doing the routine at the dinner would not be appropriate, Clinton still wanted to read the speech out loud, even if the only people to hear it would be Katz and a couple of other staffers.

Here is Katz' reminiscence of that day.