Obama Pokes Fun at Political Friends and Foes At White House Dinner

At the gathering he jokingly called “a night when Washington celebrates itself,” U.S. President Barack Obama took light-hearted aim on Saturday at a range of political friends and foes, including the people running to succeed him.

Obama’s comedy routine at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner included a sly dig at Hillary Clinton, the current front-runner to be the Democratic candidate in the 2016 presidential election.

Noting that some Americans are living in a time of uncertainty, Obama said, “For example, I have one friend ­— just a few weeks ago, she was making millions of dollars a year and she’s now living out of a van in Iowa.”

Clinton, who as a former secretary of state, former senator and former first lady is one of America’s best known figures, traveled around in a van this month in a deliberately low-key trip to the state that holds an early contest in the election primary season.

Some of his jokes are stock, including a reference to how much his time as president has aged him. “I look so old,” he said this year, “that John Boehner has already invited Netanyahu to speak at my funeral.”

Obama was angered when Boehner, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress last month against a nuclear deal with Iran that the Obama administration was negotiating with other world powers.

This article appeared in print on page 4 of the April 27th, 2015 edition of Hamodia.