I did find this article from the WH correspondents' site -
http://www.medill.nwu.edu/whca/whcadinner.html (mods, this should not be subject to the 4 paragraph rule as it is a press release).
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WHCA 2005 Annual Award Dinner
By Edward Welsch
Medill News Service
WASHINGTON – President Bush joined celebrities, pundits and politicos to rub elbows and trade jokes with elite of the Washington press corps Saturday at the White House Correspondents’ Association’s 91st annual awards dinner.
First lady Laura Bush stole the show when Bush surprised and delighted the 3,000 dinner guests by turning the microphone over to his normally quiet, reticent wife. She delivered like a standup pro, mercilessly ribbing her husband for everything from his early bedtime to his mispronunciations and lack of sophistication.
“At nine o’clock, Mr. Excitement here is sound asleep and I’m watching ‘Desperate Housewives’ with Lynne Cheney,” she said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I am a desperate housewife.”
“I was a librarian who spent 12 hours a day in the library, yet somehow I met George,” she deadpanned, adding that one of many differences between her and her husband is that “I can pronounce ‘nuclear.’”
Noting that her daughters call the president’s outdoors work at their ranch in Crawford “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” she said the president’s “answer to any problem at the ranch is to cut it down with a chainsaw, which is why he and Cheney and Rumsfeld get along so well.”
The first lady left the audience in stitches, paving the way for the entrance of the paid comedic guest, Cedric the Entertainer.
Cedric entertained the crowd by poking fun of Bush and his staff – and the hot and cramped press room that White House reporters call home.
“That’s like a small Baptist church,” Cedric said. “That needs an extreme home makeover.”
The dinner and awards ceremony in the Washington Hilton ballroom honored Ron Fournier of the Associated Press and Susan Page of USA Today for coverage of the 2004 presidential campaign, and Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams of the San Francisco Chronicle for their series on steroid use by professional athletes.
Donald Barlett and James Steele of Time magazine, for their series on illegal immigration across the Mexican border; and Jackie Calmes of The Wall Street Journal for her stories on Social Security reform, won honorable mentions.
Striking a somber note, WHCA president Ron Hutcheson called attention to journalists Matt Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times, who may face jail time for protecting the confidentiality of their sources.
“I’m not sure that everyone here can honor our legal position but I think that we can honor the courage that these two journalists have shown,” Hutcheson said.
Some attendees were at the dinner, at least in part, to celebrate journalistic excellence. “I think it’s an essential American institution,” said retired Gen. Wesley Clark, former NATO commander and unsuccessful Democratic presidential contender. “The tougher it is, the better.”
But another big draw was the sheer spectacle of so many high-profile personalities who also attended the post-dinner parties hosted by big media companies.
As in past years, Bloomberg News threw the most exclusive party, rolling out its own red carpet for tennis sisters, Venus and Serena Williams, politician-activist Al Sharpton, actress Goldie Hawn, former American Idol contestants Constantine Maroulis and Nadia Turner, supermodel Elle MacPherson, and other celebrities.
“I am came here because I am a corporate wife,” said MacPherson, accompanied by her husband, Swiss financier Arpad Busson. “And it’s fun.”
Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, accompanied by his wife, NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, made it to the A-list bash “Because Al Hunt (Bloomberg’s Washington Managing Editor) invited me.”
Ed Welsch can be reached at
[email protected]
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