We knew it was going to be an Obama love fest, that was easy. [See Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.]
At previous WHCDs the audience would expect to see the powerful get skewered. But what we didn't predict but should have seen coming was the attack on high profile conservatives. And the audience loved it when both Obama and Sykes took jabs at Fox News, Shawn Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Dick Cheney. [Watch the 2009 White House Correspondents' Dinner at C-Span.]
Early on in the Obama administration they demonstrated how much a threat they thought Rush Limbaugh was to them. And Wanda Sykes reinforced that theme last night when she joked to a friendly audience that Limbaugh should incur a life threatening physical impairment.
Her joke was about Limbaugh's proclamation that he hoped Obama would fail, clarified to mean that he hoped Obama's economic plan for the country would fail. Sykes didn't bother with the clarification but repeated that Limbaugh wanted Obama to fail and added that he wanted the country to fail, too. So she says about Limbaugh, "I hope his kidneys fail." The audience loved it.
My favorite part was the sight of Keith Olbermann in the audience. Ms. Sykes joked that Olbermann should waterboard Shawn Hannity, and as the audience laughed, the camera caught a partial glimpse of Olbermann. Olbermann immediately shifted position so that viewers could see his entire mug beaming like a full moon. What a ham, that one.
Mr. Obama is certainly basking in the adoration, and we should wonder what might happen should the media ever turn on him. Most likely he'll do whatever it takes to win them back. To paraphrase a line from a movie, the President is the head, but the media is the neck determining which direction to point the head.
Sykes was killer! Has anyone ever eviscerated Limbaugh so expertly?
At least she won't have to apologize to The Fat One like a GOP leader would be forced to do.
Posted by: Repack Rider | May 10, 2009 at 10:30 AM
here is the full hour and half video, unfiltered. watch, http://tinyurl.com/q27aor
Posted by: Genelle Sanders | May 10, 2009 at 01:00 PM
Repack Rider -- The press club played it safe for Obama. Sykes was no Don Imus. Then again, maybe that's not such a bad thing if this is a trend.
Genelle -- Thanks for the link. It's on the C-Span site, too.
Posted by: Geo | May 10, 2009 at 02:56 PM