The annual White House Correspondence Dinner (WHCD) was held on Saturday night in the nation's capitol, with the Hollywood-Washington audience groaning nearly as much as they were laughing at Joel McHale's blistering set. That's probably because his material was a wee bit too uncomfortable for many in the room, since his jokes were aimed directly at well, several people in the room, like Chris Christie.
McHale went hard -some might think a wee bit too hard - on the New Jersey governor's weight issues, but was equally brutal on Bridgegate. (He asked Christie at one point which jokes he preferred, saying,"I can go half and half. I know you like a combo platter.")
There was an even a slap at Florida. Referring to Canadians like crack smoking Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, Justin Bieber and Ted Cruz, the host of "Talk Soup" said, "You just want to tell Canada - hey, hey, relax: we already have a Florida."
Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Paul Ryan, Jeb Bush and Cruz were among the 2016 potential presidential nominees skewered by McHale.
There was even an illusion to Bill Clinton and a cigar that will be familiar to Starr Report readers.
And there was some media bashing: both McHale and (as his opener) President Obama took several shots at CNN for their obsessive coverage of missing flight 370. The best? McHale saying that CNN has been "desperately searching for something they’ve been missing for months: their dignity." That's when C-SPAN cameras then focused on an uncomfortable looking Wolf Blitzer.
He then compared the network to a Radio Shack in a sad strip-mall. "You don't know they stayed in business this long. You don't know anyone who shops there. And they just fired Piers Morgan."
Regarding the popularity of Fox News, the ratings leader in cable news? "It's all thanks to their key demographic - the corpses of old people who tuned into Fox News and haven't yet been discovered."