Obama snubs inside Beltway media elites

by Clarence Page

Chalk up yet another "first' for President Barack Obama.

Obama is scheduled to skip the spring Gridiron Club dinner, a politically-loaded highlight of Washington's social season.

And the snubbed club -- of which I am a member -- asks, what are we to make of this?

Every president since Grover Cleveland has appeared at the 124-year-old club's Spring Dinner, at least in his first year in office. Each has taken a good-natured ribbing and roasting in satirical songs and funny speeches, then received "the last word" to show off his wit and, sometimes a political message.

But, now? Is Obama turning his stately nose up at the press that so many of his political rivals like to claim that he has in his hip pocket?

No way, says the White House. Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says this year's schedule conflict has no bearing on whether the President will accept future invitations.

The Obamas will not attend, we were told, because the Obama family will be in Chicago during their daughters' spring break from school.

Or, at least, that's what we were told at first.

On Friday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said at his daily briefing that the family would actually be in Camp David on March 21, the night of the dinner.

Camp David? Excuse me? The presidential retreat in the Maryland mountains is only a 20-minute helicopter ride away. Couldn't the First Mom and First Dad leave the kids with grandma and chopper on down to join us anyway? They could be back home before midnight.

After all, we only want to make fun of them and let them make fun of us.

Past highlights have included:

• - First Lady Nancy Reagan surprising the crowd with a self-satirizing "Second-Hand Clothes" to the tune of "Second-Hand Rose."
• - Teddy Roosevelt coined the term "muckrake" to describe crusading journalists in a speech that outlined his own trust-busting crusade.
• - Bill Clinton playing the saxophone with the United States Marine Band.
• - Bush the Elder performing a turban-clad version of Johnny Carson's "Great Carnac" mind-reading routine.
• - Bush the Younger last year singing his farewell to return to "The Brown, Brown Grass of Home."
• - John F. Kennedy impressed an audience that included his rivals in an event that helped to launch his successful presidential campaign.

Obama passed that audition, of sorts, well enough to be invited back to speak for the Dems at a later Spring Dinner, during which he broke into a notable musical moment: a song adapted from "The Wizard of Oz" titled, "If I Only Had McCain."

I see in the Internet blogosphere that some of Obama's critics already are charging that he has become too thin-skinned, even for a good-natured Gridiron ribbing. In his defense, he certainly didn't seem anything but at home as he traded barbs at Washington's recent Alfalfa Club dinner (See my own blog coverage.)

Nor is it the First Lady who decided that the First Couple would skip this year's dinner, the White House insists, despite reported gossip to the contrary.

What was it, then? Is the old media too last-century for today's Blackberry-toting president?

Ah, yes. This is an era of change. The young Blackberry-toting Obama has rattled a lot of establishment cages on his way to the top. Why should the Gridiron Club be any different?

If Obama figures he won't pay much of a price in public esteem by skipping a media dinner, he's probably right. I don't think anybody ever went broke by bashing the media, except maybe other media - like newspapers. A lot of them have been going broke lately.

That only makes the Obama Gridiron snub seem like another blow against the traditional "old" media, whether he intends it to be or not.

All is not lost. We still get some respect. Vice President Joe Biden is scheduled to fill in for Obama. Top administration officials, including Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, are expected to attend. So is the usual array of congressional leaders, Supreme Court members and party leaders.

And the president? Well, as they say in Wrigleyville, maybe next year.