Jimmy Kimmel and President Obama roasted the Secret Service,
Washington's political and media elite--and each other--at the 98th White House Correspondents' Association dinner on Saturday night at the Washington Hilton.
And it seemed no one at the annual gathering of media, celebrities and politicians was off limits.
During his speech, Obama took a
jab at the now-infamous Summit of the Americas that sparked the Secret
Service sex scandal earlier this month. "Four years ago, I was locked
in a primary battle with Hillary Clinton," Obama said. "Four years
later, she won't stop drunk-texting me from Cartagena."
"Jimmy got his start on 'The Man
Show,'" Obama noted of the evening's host. "In Washington, that's what
we call a Congressional hearing on contraception."
Last year's dinner occurred on the eve of Osama bin Laden's killing, and the anniversary proved to be fodder for several jokes.
"Who will it be this year?" Kimmel quipped. (The Navy SEALs, he said, should focus on the Kardashians.)
"We finally delivered justice to
one of world's most notorious individuals," Obama recalled, as an image
of Donald Trump appeared on a screen.
The president also made several
jokes about his increasingly gray hair, predicting in four years he'll
look like Morgan Freeman. "That's not even funny," Obama said, laughing.
The president congratulated
Arianna Huffington on the Huffington Post's recent Pulitzer Prize.
"There's no one out there linking to the kinds of hard-hitting
journalism that HuffPo is linking to every single day," he said. "And
you don't pay them! It's a great business model." ("Yow," Howard Kurtz,
columnist for HuffPo rival Daily Beast, responded on Twitter.)
Obama then took a few mild
swipes at his likely opponent in November. "It's great to be here in
the vast, magnificent Hilton ballroom," Obama said. "Or what Mitt
Romney would call 'a little fixer upper.'" ("I was just relieved to
learn this one wasn't a GSA conference," Obama said, pivoting briefly
to the GSA controversy. "Unbelievable--not even the mind-reader knew
what they were thinking.")
"We both have degrees from Harvard," he said of Romney. "I have one, he has two--what a snob."
Obama also looked ahead to the
next four years. "In the first term I sang Al Green," he said. "In my
second term, I'm going with Young Jeezy." (First Lady Michelle Obama
nodded in approval.)
"I have a lot of Secret Service jokes," Kimmel said. "I told them for $800 I wouldn't tell them, but they only offered 30."
Kimmel pointed to Sofia Vergara, one of a swarm of celebrities in attendance.
"This is what women look like in Colombia," Kimmel said. "What's the Secret Service supposed to do?"
He continued: "If this had
happened on President Clinton's watch, those Secret Service agents
would've been disciplined with a very serious high-five. Palms would be
beet red."
Kimmel, host of ABC's "Jimmy
Kimmel Live," reflected on his path to entertaining the president: "If
you told me as a kid I'd be standing on the dais with President Barack
Obama, I would've said, 'The president's name is Barack Obama?'"
He also took a swipe at Obama's
weight. "You're so skinny," Kimmel said. "This is how you know how this
country is in bad shape: Our president is starving. North Korea is
sending him food aid."
Speaking of weight, the comedian also skewered the other end of the spectrum.
"Look, it's Chris Christie," Kimmel told the first lady. "Get him!"
"Gov. Christie, you may be misunderstanding the [New Jersey] slogan," he added. "It's not the 'Olive Garden State.'"
Kimmel defended fellow comedian Bill Maher in a bit about Rush Limbaugh.
"Is that slut Rush Limbaugh here?" Kimmel asked. "There's a reason Rush Limbaugh said what he said: Percocet."
"Just to clear things this up
for the extreme right wingers, here's the difference between Bill Maher
and Rush Limbaugh," Kimmel explained. "The people who watch Bill Maher
know he's an ---hole."
Kimmel, though, threw a few punches aimed at Keith Olbermann.
"Under your seats, you'll find a
copy of Keith Olbermann's résumé," Kimmel said. "The thing about Keith
Olbermann is, he's so likeable. Olbermann's burned more bridges than
arsonists of Madison County."