“You know what they say: You can never go wrong underestimating the intelligence of the American public,” ho-ho-hoed TV’s John McLaughlin, with the aggressive bonhomie of a dime-store Santa, as he towered over Labor Secretary Robert Reich.
McLaughlin was offering Reich, unsolicited, news of the apparently strong Washington-area TV ratings for “The McLaughlin Group.” It came during last week’s 110th annual dinner of the Gridiron, a truly timeless white-tie Washington affair.
A droll Bill Clinton proved to be the unrivaled star at the Gridiron, which is named after a griddle, not a football field. But Warren Harding might also have felt at home, even if confused by the absence of horse-drawn carriages outside.
The Gridiron is a club whose full-time membership is confined to 60 working print journalists. It stands for the exaltation of a small town’s obesession with status: You’re important because of what, not who, you are.
Until the 1970s it was totally white male. Then it relented and allowed in a woman (Helen Thomas, the UPI White House reporter) and a black (syndicated columnist Carl Rowan).
Well-known names of print journalism’s establishment are members, including Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, the Wall Street Journal’s Albert Hunt, the Washington Post’s David Broder, the Baltimore Sun’s Jack Germond, and the Los Angeles Times’ Jack Nelson.
The Gridiron’s obedience to tradition rivals that of the Vatican. It’s summed up at an “off-the-record” dinner whose centerpiece show may be amateur theater’s version of the Bataan Death March.
The 600-member audience, a Who’s Who of “official” Washington and media and other corporate executives, results partly from a sort of auction among the club members. The invitee list produced by the senior members, who are imbued with a 1950-ish cultural sensibility, thus includes leaders of the auto companies, not Bill Gates of Microsoft. Nolan Ryan, not Michael Jordan. The Tribune bid on and won White House spokesman Mike McCurry and PBS cornerstone Jim Lehrer, with very “hot” invitees including C-SPAN founder-leader-soul-host Brian Lamb.
The big Saturday evening begins at about 5 p.m. with cocktail parties. You’re ushered into the ballroom at 6:30 after receiving a seating chart, as is tradition, from the three new inductees, the bureau chiefs of the Baltimore Sun, Newhouse Newspapers and Wall Street Journal. The three would be formally introduced, as is tradition, on stage, standing at attention, wearing white sailor suits.
As is tradition, the ballroom lights go dark for the club’s president’s welcome. This year it was Alan S. Emory of the Daily Times of Watertown, N.Y. (population 30,000), who likely had dreamed for decades of this life’s apex: invoking the club’s credo of “singe, never burn.”
With Clinton to his right and Vice President Al Gore to his left, and the Cabinet all around, he wondered why Gore’s moves to shrink government could not have shrunk Clinton’s State of the Union address. Get it? It was real long.
Or how about this: All the Republican presidential candidates are weighing their chances against Clinton, “one Gramm at a time.” Get it? Phil Gramm of Texas is among those running. Maybe Emory was killin’ ’em in Watertown.
The lights then went up, the initial wine (Morgan Sauvignon Blanc 1993) was served, as were Bavarian asparagus, artichoke and foie gras, with truffle vinaigrette, and the U.S. Marine Band (with, oddly, a single non-white among 60 players) did a medley.
(Oh, not everybody saw this. After the president arrives, you can’t enter the room until the next intermission. When notoriously late Clinton came on time, the cadre cooling their heels outside included presidential media adviser Paul Begala, Sen. Nancy Kassebaum (R-Kan.) and media magnate Allen Neuharth.)
The ensuing show was as cutting as an Andy Williams Christmas Special. The one rock ‘n’ roll tune used was from the early ’60s (“The Loco-Motion”) and the slam-bang opening number, “Comedy Tonight,” began, “Here’s our solution/Try revolution/Back to the Reagan days/It’s comedy tonight.” Bah-boom.
There was a passable Colin Powell routine (“Colin Powell, Superstar, when will you say what you really are?”), and tortured attempts at humor over Clinton’s golf game, the immigration policies of guest and California Gov. Pete Wilson and various Cabinet members’ ethics problems.
Along the way, club stalwarts Broder and Newsday’s Susan Page reverently introduced the many insiders in the audience, including tons of governors, and spoke lines like these:
Page: “Nancy Kassebaum has replaced Edward Kennedy as chairman of the Labor and Human Resources Committee.”
Broder: “Susan, now that’s what I’d call downsizing government!” (Kassebaum is very short. Get it?).
The singing was dismal, saved only by the two annual ringers, attorney Joseph diGenova and Milwaukee’s William Duvall Jr. (explaining the presence of brother Robert, the actor). As is tradition, there was a Republican and a Democratic “response,” one given by former Education Secretary William Bennett, the other by House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.).
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Bennett was funny, opening with an atrocious rendition of “People,” stopping after a verse and announcing, “If Barbra Streisand can give a lecture at Harvard, I can sing at the Gridiron.”
Gephardt surfaced in an Eagle Scout outfit, replete with shorts and merit badges. It was a one-joke routine, prompting heads to strain and seek any waiter with more Guigal Cotes du Rhone 1991 being served with the loin of lamb with peppercorn crust.
The many intermissions brought hobnobbing and relief.
Social-climbing media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman (Atlantic Monthly, U.S. News & World Report, New York Daily News) had whipped cream dropped on him by a waiter, a source reported.
Meanwhile, Ann Landers discussed her doubts about psychiatry with Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), the only shrink in the House; grim-faced Rep. Jennifer Dunn (R-Wash.) fumed in the ladies room about the idiot (former Democratic National Chairman Charles Manatt) who was smoking at her table; and I discussed (off the record) our upcoming tactical nuclear strike against Iraq with Joint Chiefs Chairman John Shaliskashvili (just joking, but we did chat).
Finally, it came time for Clinton. “It’s only 11:15 p.m. I think I’ll finish the State of the Union,” he opened.
He introduced a nifty, slickly produced (by comic Al Franken) video takeoff of “Forrest Gump,” starring the absent Hillary Clinton (traveling overseas). Sitting on a bench in front of the White House, she played a simpleton with a Southern accent.
“Hi, my name’s Hillary-Hillary Gump. You can call me Hillary Rodham Gump. That’s what everybody calls me, except on the Connie Chung show. You know, that’s my house back there. My mama always told me the White House is like a box of chocolates. It’s pretty on the outside, but inside there’s a lot of nuts.”
And just like Tom Hanks’ Gump, Hillary shows up, and influences, famous events, including George McGovern’s 1972 Democratic National Convention speech, Watergate (she was Deep Throat) and Jimmy Carter’s disastrous “malaise” address (He misunderstood when she counseled: “Give a speech about mayonnaise. Everybody loves mayonnaise”).
Finally, a wide-eyed, short-sleeved Clinton plops down on the bench, takes the entire box of chocolates and quickly asks the young woman, “You got any french fries to go with these chocolates?”
“Cupid is as Cupid does,” comes Hillary’s voice in the background, a takeoff on Hanks’ “Stupid is as stupid does” and suggesting it was love at first, or maybe fifth, bite.
It made quite bearable an evening that concluded, as is tradition, by the raising of glasses of Maison Deutz Brut Cuvee champagne, toasting the president and singing “Auld Lang Syne.”
All very incestuous. But on the bright side, it was shorter than a Fidel Castro speech.