WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama shared Washington’s high-society spotlight on Saturday night with an unlikely co-star — Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
Wearing a black satin evening gown, Palin was spotted by journalists making her way into the ballroom at the Capitol Hilton for the Alfalfa Dinner, an annual closed-door roast of the city’s political and business elite.
Following in the footsteps of White House predecessors, Obama served as headline speaker at the light-hearted black-tie affair, which in accordance with a 96-year tradition bars reporters.
So it was not known whether the president had any choice words from the podium for Palin, who as Republican vice presidential nominee in the 2008 election rarely missed a chance to lash into Obama.
But, according to a few of Obama’s joke excerpts released by the White House, he had a few zingers for his hard-driving chief of state, Rahm Emanuel, who has a reputation for sometimes harsh language.
“It was actually Rahm’s idea to do the swearing-in ceremony again,” he said. “Of course, for Rahm, every day is a swearing-in ceremony.”
“Rahm Emanuel is a real sweetheart,” Obama added. “Every week the guy takes a little time away to give back to the community. Just last week he was at a local school, teaching profanity to poor children.”
Of his battle to guard part of his pre-White House lifestyle after his Jan. 20 inauguration, he said, “In just the first few weeks, I’ve had to engage in some of the toughest diplomacy of my life. And that was just to keep my Blackberry.”
And Obama, the first black U.S. president, also poked fun at the Alfalfa Club’s founding in 1913 by a group of Southern gentlemen.
“Many you are aware that this dinner began almost one hundred years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee. If he were here with us tonight, the general would be 202 years old. And very confused,” Obama said.
Photo credit: Reuters/Tami Chappell (Palin at a campaign rally for Senator Saxby Chambliss)
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eric,i think tc would agree with me here. we need to let you down as lightly as possible,because we are compassionate conservatives but we don,t want to deflate you completely.but matching your intelligence against sarah palin,that is not a true reflection on the reality of the situation. putting forward the heights of academic brilliance with your history degree,does not necessarily advance this theory.she governs a state,and you are a rough carpenter on a building site.there is a slight difference,get the message,please let commonsense prevail and give her a little bit more credit.incidentally have a nice day.
- Posted by brian leeAna4sarah-
In an Anchorage Daily News interview last week - and gosh, I’ve missed her masterful command of the English language - Sarah Palin said:
“Yeah, I’m going to meet with those who are making decisions for Alaska in the stimulus package, including … Mitch McConnell and others, having dinner with them and meeting with John Katz in our D.C. office on what it is that we can support in the stimulus package. Advocating tough too for an exemption that Alaska needs in terms of timelines for some of these shovel-ready projects. Congress is saying the projects involved in the infrastructure aspect of the stimulus package have to be shovel ready, have to get them out the door, whether it be 90 days or 120 days. Well we’re Alaska, and we need an exemption there so that we’re not left out in the cold in terms of some of the projects that will take a northern climate a longer period of time to make sure that we have our projects ready to go.”
So much for “Thanks but no thanks.” Looks like Palin’s new catchphrase is “I heart government cheese.”
Meanwhile, Palin is going to have to try a bit harder to impress her Republican supporters if she’s planning to become president in 2012. Like her run at the vice-presidency, an ABC News article last week entitled “Palin Stiffs The House Republicans” sounds provocative but ultimately turns out to be a disappointment.
When House Republicans planned their annual winter retreat, they extended an invitation to Alaska Gov. Sara Palin, hoping the party’s 2008 vice presidential nominee would give a morale-building speech to the more than 130 Republican members of Congress gathered this weekend in Hot Springs, Va.
Retreat organizers tell ABC News that Palin politely declined, giving a perfectly understandable reason. According to the Congressional Institute, which hosted the conference, Palin said she simply could not make it to the retreat because pressing state business made it impossible for her to leave Alaska this weekend.
So where is Palin this weekend? She’s in Washington, D.C., attending the super-elite Alfalfa Dinner.
“She lied to us,” said a Republican at the retreat.
Um, and this is a surprise to you… why?
- Posted by getplaningAll this Palin bashing shows what low IQ’s some have. Stop bashing about something you know nothing about.Get an education instead!!!!
- Posted by Jayne M
I’m quite well educated Jayne, degree in history with a minor in theology from a decent state university not several community colleges and I didn’t take time off to compete in a beauty contest. That’s why I was opposed to Palin. I haven’t taken an IQ test since I was a kid but I feel confident that I could top Palins.
- Posted by Eric HSarah Palin, is a beautiful, bright, and aggressively ambitious women. Her error was not that people saw her as dumb, they saw her as unprepared. We teach our children to be prepared for school; she should have declined a Vice Presidential bid if she felt that she was not yet prepared to undertake the challenge. You can’t just rely on aids and teleprompters to get you by. You need genuine preparation.
As for Obama, time will tell if the change that he speaks of is a real change for America, or just a change of political positioning on his part.
Obama is smart but he can not depend on his handlers and aids to make the big and early decisions, he must think on his own; that what the world is counting on.
- Posted by John mahoneyjimbo i used to play golf on a golf course in england, and one of the freeways had strips of land about 8 feet wide and about 250feet long.those pieces of land,that,s how folks used to feed their families,they worked for the lord for five days with no pay,and he allowed them to plant and feed their families on these strips of land.the houses they lived in also belonged to the lord as well if you did not comply you were out.also near was a valley called the” valley of widows”,if you went to work in the lead mines you were dead before you were thirty, but they had to feed their families,hence the the reality was lots young women dressed in black.
- Posted by brian leeLet’s clarify Sarah Palin’s “pro-life” stance. Katie Couric questioned her last summer, and she said that while she (Sarah) is pro-life, abortion rights is a states’ issue, and should be regulated at the state level. Sarah went on to say that state governments are better able to understand the desires of their residents and to legislate accordingly. The “not for me, but ok for you” argument is usually called PRO-CHOICE, not pro-life. Palin is clearly PRO-ChOICE, and we should not be mislead into supporting such a candidate!
- Posted by calypsoHi, Steve, Barb, good comments! Everybody is enslaved by this or that. Why not uproot slavery of the mankind forever?
- Posted by Wang XuAll this Palin bashing shows what low IQ’s some have. Stop bashing about something you know nothing about.Get an education instead!!!!
- Posted by Jayne M“In trying to set things straight, he wanted to free these slaves as well, but to do so at that time would have bankrupted his sons, so he made a promise to the slaves that he would free them in 5 years. He kept his promise and freed them in 1863!” -Steve Hall
Steve Hall hails Robert E. Lee was an honorable man for _Doing The Right Thing Only When it was Convenient_.
This definition of honor is what is causing the downfall of the US.
To put it simply, keeping people in bondage, imprisoned, in slavery, for five years was not the right thing to do.
- Posted by CollettePlease let Ms Palin fade into the obscurity she richly deserves. However, it is nice to see that US Republicans can move forward in their thinking. Note how unwed teenage sex and pregnancy are no longer an issue since teen sex poster-girl Sarah Palin’s daughter had her baby.
- Posted by fuzzbollah