Here is the President’s speech to the White House Correspondents’ annual dinner at the Washington Hilton last night.
He reads from a written text, and performs with the expected aplomb. Some of his jokes are excellent; some are OK; a few are actually acerbic (and these are the ones that manage to crack him up — whatever that may mean).
That said, the ending is a let down — surprisingly pedestrian and underwhelming. The usual formula is to get them slapping their knees and leave them dabbing their eyes. But the peroration about the role and future of the press in changing times —including what may or may not have been intended as a put down about approximating the truth— is indifferently delivered and just comes to an end rather than rising to a crescendo.