Is he a real American? Is he Rocky? Is he the Lion King?
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama attend the White House Correspondents? Association Dinner in Washington, Saturday, April 30, 2011. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)President Barack Obama used the jocularity of the White House Correspondents Dinner to poke fun at the birthers, the 2012 GOP candidates, and even his own slumping popularity in a standup speech that ended on a solemn note, as he talked about the “unimaginable devastation” of the tornado damage he saw Friday? in Alabama.
First, though, it was all fun. He opened his routine with a video, set to the Hulk Hogan theme song “I’m a Real American,” that combined images of his long-form birth certificate with iconic Americana: an eagle, Rocky, Mount Rushmore, an apple pie.
“What a week it’s been,” he said afterward, telling the audience he had a special treat: a never-seen-before video of his birth in 1961. What flashed on the screen, to much hilarity in the ballroom, was the birth scene from the Lion King movie.
“I want to make clear to the Fox News table,” he said. “That was a joke.”
Before a room packed with celebrities, lawmakers, journalists, and more than a few likely 2012 contenders, Mr. Obama proceeded to take shots at himself: “I think it’s fair to say with my presidency, the honeymoon is over.”
And: “Others say that I’m arrogant. But I found a really great self-help tool for this; my poll numbers.”
Then he let it rip on everyone from Donald Trump to Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican Budget Committee chairman whose austere spending plan recently passed the House.
“His budget has no room for laughter,” Mr. Obama said.
Riffing on the theme of their own possible foreignness, he took swipes at a slew of 2012 GOP challengers, including Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and his just-returned ambassador to China, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman.
“He didn’t learn Chinese to go there,” Mr. Obama said of Mr. Hunstman. “He learned English to come here.”
Mr. Trump, who has done more than anyone to stir questions about the president’s birthplace and was there to laugh along, got the most barbs.
The New York real estate developer, the president said, has now moved on to other mysteries, like “did we fake the moon landing?”
And: “what really happened at Roswell?”
The comedic host for the evening, Saturday Night Live’s lead writer, Seth Meyers, stole the show with a batch of bipartisan one-liners.
Mr. Pawlenty was what you found when you looked up “boring” in the dictionary. Mr. Trump “says he running as a Republican, which I found surprising, because I thought he was running as a joke.”
Mr. Meyers also made fun of how the president had aged, and changed politically, since his election in 2008.
“If your hair gets any whiter,” he said, turning to the president, “the tea party is going to endorse you.”
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