Oh, that scamp, Obama! Last night was another Gridiron Dinner and a fresh chance for the jokester-in-chief to flash what Lloyd Christmas would call his “rapist’s wit.” To be sure, there is nothing less hilarious than a guy with preternaturally thin skin firing off comedic barbs at his “enemy,” but Obama has demonstrated tediously often throughout his presidency that he doesn’t need a stage for this.
Besides, as a tweet by CBS News’s Mark Knoller suggests, at least one of his gags at last night’s roast was quasi-self-deprecatory:
Taking swipe at GOP, Pres said “You don’t diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran.”
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) March 15, 2015
The Huffington Post’s Jennifer Bendery was also in attendance at the dinner, but her tweet includes a second “punch line” that was absent from Knoller’s:
Obama: “You don’t diminish your office by taking a selfie. You do it by sending a poorly written letter to Iran. Really. That wasnt a joke.” — jennifer bendery (@jbendery) March 15, 2015
That’s true. It wasn’t a joke. It is no secret that Obama has been hopping mad ever since 47 GOP senators “conspired to undermine his authority” by sending a letter to Tehran alerting the mullahs that any deal reached with the White House would require congressional advice and consent. Just last night, around the same time Obama was thanking his audience for their applause, telling them they had “been great,” a letter from his chief of staff, Denis McDonough, was being hand-delivered to Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker, reminding him of the “profoundly negative impact” any further interference might have on the administration’s delicate negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program.
Just one problem with Obama’s pique with the GOP. That is that there is a precedent for bucking the will of the White House in its dealings with rogue states like Iran. Why in 2008, a Democratic senator secretly dispatched an emissary to Tehran to assure the mullahs that he was a friend of the Islamic Republic. This was confirmed by the man who was sent on the mission, former Ambassador William G. Miller.
And the name of the senator who sent Miller in open defiance of the GOP-controlled White House? Barack Obama.
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