Bill Clinton: Obama 'polishing his Nobel'

by Mark Silva

When a Democratic president is too busy to attend the annual Gridiron Club dinner, one of Washington's longest-running rituals of humor for power-brokers and the press, there's a good chance that he can find a substitute -- like a former Democratic president.

Like Bill Clinton, who told the white-tie crowd last night that President Barack Obama, hard at work tying down final votes for the healthcare bill on Capitol Hill this weekend, actually was busy "polishing his Nobel Peace Prize.''

Clinton, who failed in his time to win healthcare reform, predicted that Democrats will prevail this time. "It may not happen in my lifetime or in Dick Cheney's, but hopefully by Easter," he said -- with an allusion to the heart conditions that he and the former Republican vice president share. (Clinton has had a bypass, Cheney five heart attacks.)

Speaking on a warm start-of-Spring evening, Clinton suggested that this is "otherwise known to Al Gore as proof of global warming." (Gore won a Nobel, too.)

Clinton had some words for the evening's other speaker, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, handling the traditional minority report: "Orrin, he's the wittiest of all the Republicans. That 's sort of like saying he's the tallest of the Seven Dwarfs."

Clinton, who left a budget surplus when he left office, also had this to say about his own record as president: "My only regret in creating 23 million new jobs is that 2 million of those jobs were for right-wing pundits.''

See the media reviews above of the "old hounddog'' who had "eight years to practice'' his act, courtesy of Politico. Wire services contributed to this report.