An April 1 Style article about the Gridiron Club dinner incorrectly quoted Cragg Hines of the Houston Chronicle as telling the audience, "Some would say we have had an expansion of the Gridiron in the last five years." The sentence should have ended "in the last two years," and the speaker was the club's secretary, George Condon. The article also misidentified Hines as the club's musical director; Hines is the music chairman, and Marine Lt. Col. Michael Colburn is the music director.
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Stand-Up Comity, One Night Only
The ultimate in press cozying up with power: NBC's Andrea Mitchell and her husband, Alan Greenspan, arrive at last night's Gridiron dinner.
(Photos By James M. Thresher -- The Washington Post)
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· Susan Page of USA Today, participating as a member of the "bleedin' lib'ral Press Corps Band," singing, "We swear by Scooter Libby we / Will burn a source without remorse / We love to burn a source."
· Two very good singers, imported by the Gridiron Club, pretending to be Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Arm in arm they proffered a revisionist version of "I Remember It Well" from "Gigi." In the song, Rumsfeld remembers Iraqis welcoming U.S. troops "with open arms." Rice reminds him, "They opened fire! They set off bombs!" An oblivious Rumsfeld responds, "Oh, right, I remember it well."
Other song parodies included a paean to Democratic political strategist Rahm Emanuel -- "O Rahm! O Rahm! Emanuel," sung to the tune of the Christmas carol "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" -- and a gallows-humor diddy by former New York Times reporter Hedrick Smith as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Helen Thomas of Hearst Newspapers as Kim Jong Il about Saddam Hussein's feet "in the air."
The whole cast appeared onstage for a rousing rendition of "Summer in the Arctics," poking fun at global warming. "Polar bears are on thin ice / And penguins march in place -- poor guys!"
Roughly 600 people, at $260 a plate, watched the spectacle. For years, the Gridiron was exclusively for newspaper people. Pillars of the club include David Broder of The Washington Post and Jack Germond of the Baltimore Sun. Recently it has been opened up to TV, radio and newsweekly journalists -- "sparklies," as one old-timer refers to them. Last year Tim Russert of NBC News was admitted. New members this year include Bob Schieffer of CBS News and Mara Liasson of National Public Radio. "Some would say we have had an expansion of the Gridiron in the last five years," musical director Cragg Hines of the Houston Chronicle told the audience. "We prefer to call it a surge."
Hilarious.
For ancient and inane reasons, the club -- which is made up of working journalists -- does not let journalists work; reporters are not allowed to cover the event, though the Friday afternoon rehearsal is open to press. The heavily scripted evening is considered to be off the record, but information does leak.
Preparations take months. Members are allotted four tickets apiece, more if they bring newsmakersfrom the club's wish list. Retired Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan was there last night; so was his successor, Ben Bernanke. And former secretary of state Colin Powell.
In his speech, Neikirk addressed Vice President Cheney and said he had his remarks approved by two Washington experts in humor and brevity: Democratic Sens. Joe Biden and John Kerry.
Asked if the performance at Wednesday night's White House Radio & Television Correspondents' Dinner -- in which Karl Rove got up onstage and rapped with NBC News journo David Gregory and others -- was a good thing, Robert Novak said he didn't think it was funny. "That's my test. If it's funny."
But is it funny? As humor trumped skepticism once again last night, we couldn't help wondering why this charade parade goes on year after year. Or is that skepticism we see every day at White House news conferences and nightly news interviews just a stage show,and this chumminess reality?
