One of the oldest traditions of establishment Washington is the Gridiron dinner, put on by the oldest press club in Washington. The dinner used to be off the record due to its putting the powerful in the compromising position of making fools of themselves as they cavort about a stage singing and dancing.
Last night's dinner featured co-hosts Barney Frank and Sarah Palin. And the former Alaska governor was apparently a big success as she got some shots in at the press as well as the McCain campaign.
Jeanne Cummings and Andrew Glass of Politico:
Addressing the crowd of journalists, the former Alaska governor poked fun at the penchant of political reporters to leaf through campaign book indexes to find their names, noting that she decided to skip the index on her book.So, at the dinner, she created one: "A: Alaska, media not understanding it, page 1-432.
"B: Biased, Page 1-432."
But Palin also took the opportunity to take a few shots at her running mate from last year, and also her Democratic rival.
"The view is so much better inside the bus than under the bus," she said, neatly putting together a reference to her book tour and a crack at the former ticket mate, And if she ever need a bald campaign manager, "I'm left with James Carville," a reference to President Clinton's 1992 campaign manager and a dig at Steve Schmidt, McCain's manager in 2008.
Staying with the book theme, she joked that "If the election had turned out differently, I could be the one overseeing the signing of bailout checks and Vice President Biden could be on the road selling his book, 'Going Rogaine.'"
As for the president, Palin joked that she was looking at a magazine cover of Obama and Chinese president Hu Jinato during an airplane flight. A nearby passenger stated, "Hu's the Communist," she related.
It's all in good fun, of course. Well, sort of. After all, considering the snide barbs that have been coming from former McCain campaign officials, the dinner seemed the perfect opportunity to get a little payback going while belittling a press corps that printed wild, unsubstantiated rumors about her during the campaign.
Palin apparently took part in the closing musical number as well. Haven't seen any video on the internet this morning (cameras are barred from the dinner) but I will bet someone took some video with a cell phone and it will surface eventually.
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