Presidential comedy show

The White House video above is of President Obama at the 2012 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in Washington, DC. This annual event is probably the only thing most Americans know about the White House Correspondents' Association, which is one of the criticisms of the dinner. The group was founded in 1914, the dinner started in 1920, and the first US President to attend the dinner was Calvin Coolidge in 1924.

Nowadays, the dinner usually has had presidents taking a turn at being comedians. My personal favourites from President Obama’s routine were the jokes about contraception hearings, his cracks about the Huffington Post and the dog jokes (the latter because they were quite subtle).

This dinner isn’t really terribly important, and I think that the criticism of it as demonstrating the chumminess between the US newsmedia and the administration of the day are valid. Still, it is all in fun, and all of them deserve a night off once a year. The criticisms can wait until the next day.