President Obama at 2009 RTCA Dinner

President Obama in his speech to the RTCA got right to the heart of Washington’s journalist dinner rivalry, saying he was on hand to “Tell jokes that weren’t funny enough for me to use when we did this five weeks ago,” at the White House Correspondents’ dinner (known as the Senior Prom to the RTCA’s Junior Prom.) Then again, he said, twisting the knife deeper: “The jokes may not be as good but neither is the guest list.”

And later: “I think your programming is more relevant than ever before — at least that’s the impression that I get when I read the blogs.”

In his appearance before the Radio and TV correspondents at the Washington D.C. Convention Center, the President was unaccompanied by First Lady Michelle Obama on the orange and yellow rose-rimmed dais and he left at 9:20, before dinner was served. His short stay prompted some last-minute frantic juggling of the entertainment lineup, according to insiders. VP Biden wasn’t there, either, despite apparently erroneous earlier reports that he would attend. A spokeswoman said that he had a scheduling conflict.

Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, right after the speech, noted the President’s “sharp elbowed humor;” a few tweets from the dinner suggested that his humor was “underappreciated” by the audience. He cracked himself up several times, however.

The biggest laughs of the night came when he joked about embattled California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger competing on “I’m a Celebrity….Get Me Out of Here,” then added: “That’s how I feel about tonight.” The dinner, he said, was causing him to miss “date night” with Michelle, and his plans to go for Thai food-pause-”in Bangkok.”

A joke about being in bed with NBC’s Brian Williams, whom he called a terrible house guest, was followed by a list of new TV programs that the success of “Inside the White House” had inspired, the funniest of which was TLC’s “Jon & Kate plus Peter Orszag.”

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski

There was also a mild jab at NBC White House Correspondent Chuck Todd for having the style of a TV correspondent and “the facial hair of a radio correspondent.” To MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski, he said: “We both have partners named Joe who used to be in Congress and don’t know when to stop talking.” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, he noted, was “the only other man in America with his own situation room,” and it was cooler than the President’s, which he said, was unable “to generate the bandwidth to turn Larry Summers into a hologram.”

Random jokes poked fun at his own Administration, including Richard Holbrooke, whom he alleged sprayed WD-40 that caused Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s elbow-breaking fall. He announced a “new” plan to rescue the auto business, telling dinner guests to look under their seat, a la Oprah, because everyone was getting a car company. Fox, he said, would get AIG.

Looking relieved that his speech was over, the President ended his remarks with a serious tribute to the work of the press, noting “I am here tonight because I appreciate the role you do.” He got the traditional standing ovation at the beginning and end.

Ali Wentworth from whcinsider on Vimeo.

Ali Wentworth, actress, comedienne, Oprah regular, and wife of George Stephanopoulos gave WHCInsider the exclusive insight on her e-rules for the Information Super Highway. WHCInsider has learned that George Stephanopoulos is not permitted to tweet when Ali Wentworth is talking. Ali also doesn’t permit BlackBerrys in the bedroom and says tweeting should be something you do when you’re alone.

And she predicts her former boss, Jay Leno, will be a hit in his new 10:00 p.m. time slot, and thinks Wanda Sykes was told to tone down her blue humor for the WHCD. We picked up these scoops at the raucous party Ali and George hosted Monday night for the fun and fabulous Lee Woodruff’s second book: Perfectly Imperfect.

Check out our interview with Ali and you’ll know why she’s got her own show, “Head Case,” why she has a regular seat on Oprah, and why George is always smiling!

Unlike Jay Leno and David Letterman, whose shows run Monday through Friday nights, Sykes’s will air only on Saturdays. But much like Leno, Letterman and other talk show hosts, the Emmy Award-winning Sykes comes from a background of stand-up comedy that’s rooted in current events — the staple of pretty much all yakkers.
 
Late-night talk shows also thrive on political humor, though hosts generally try to aim their barbs at both sides of the aisle. But at a Human Rights Campaign dinner she emceed last March, Sykes struck a decidedly partisan (and potty-mouthed) note, taking on Rush Limbaugh’s then-recent declaration that he hoped President Barack Obama “fails” in just about anything he attempts to do.
 
As noted on the Website wilshireandwashington.com, Sykes referred to Republicans in general as “evil people…they’re just nasty,” then said of Limbaugh’s comment: “What the hell? What kind of bullshit is that? So he says screw everybody else. ‘Screw everybody, I just want to win!’ That’s treason, right? I’m like, ‘Let’s not close Guantanamo, send Rush Limbaugh’s big ass over there! He’s a terrorist!’”
 
Sykes revealed in November 2008 that she is gay, after marrying her partner of two-years in October.  Sykes has also advised those opposed to same-sex marriage — usually conservatives — simply not to marry someone of the same sex. Problem solved!
 
The nominally bipartisan spirit of the White House Correspondents Dinner would likely require similar observations of liberals/Democrats, or possibly prefer no such observations at all. But on her own show, Sykes will likely be under no such obligation, and, since it is slated for an 11:00 p.m. start, she’ll be operating outside the reach of the Federal Communications Commission’s indecency cops (whose shift runs only from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., per federal regulations).
 
Sykes has been a hit on the stand-up circuit as well as in movies and television ever since quitting her NSA job in 1992. On HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” she played herself in several episodes, sometimes stealing scenes from the show’s hard-to-upstage star, Larry David. She’s currently on the CBS comedy, “The New Adventures of Old Christine.”

 
Sykes and Fox had their first fling in 2003, but some thought it ended a little prematurely, at least from the comedian’s point of view. The network yanked her sitcom “Wanda At Large” after only 19 episodes. “Yes, my relationship with Fox hasn’t been the best,” Sykes said in a network press release about the new talk show. “But if Rihanna can go back to Chris Brown, I can go back to Fox. Oprah tried to talk me out of it, but I think Fox has changed.”
 
Sykes doesn’t seem to have changed a bit, and that could make her fellow diners on May 9 or her talk show guests next fall really laugh — or squirm.
 
–William Triplett