Press, sources revel in annual Gridiron truce

How easy was it to crash the annual Gridiron Club gala dinner at the Renaissance Hotel Saturday night?

Easy as dressing up in a $99 satin gown and walking right past security into the throng of journalists, Cabinet members, heads of state and the CIA, heavy hitters and talking heads; grabbing a drink; and gabbing to News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch about politics. (He said he really likes Barack Obama.) His name wasn’t in the program. Maybe he was crashing, too.

Then, moving on past CNN’s John King (new inductee), social X-ray Ann Coulter — who is so thin that if she swallowed a baked bean it would be mistaken for a baby bump — and right into new Washington Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth, in spiky hair and sexy burgundy silk decolletage. There was Andrea Mitchell (jewel-tone Reem Acra gown) and husband Alan Greenspan; Tim Russert and Maureen Orth; Sens. John Kerry, Christopher Dodd and Kay Bailey Hutchison; filmmaker Ken Burns; Obama campaign manager David Axelrod; Karl Rove; White House spokesperson Dana Perino; Al Hunt; and Judy Woodruff.

It was all so cozy-wozy we decided to up the ante and breezed past the Secret Service into the private reception room for the Cabinet members and asked Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice who had designed her ravishing mocha silk gown (Oscar de la Renta), and chatted with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates — who is short and cheerful despite his right arm being still in a sling. (He fell on that ice last month.)

The Gridiron Dinner is supposed to be off the record, an event in which the press and those it covers can convene in a Washington ballroom to yuck it up and ham it up. The annual dinner was started in 1885 and is almost as old as Helen Thomas, who once again appeared in a skit and was rewarded with a kiss from President Bush, who ended the evening by taking the stage and crooning “The Brown Brown Grass of Home.”

In between were cornball sketches and ditties, (“O-bama-lot”) sung by members of the club whose only reason for existence is to put on the show once a year, every spring. Mr. Bush and first lady Laura Bush sat at the raised head table and seemed amused by all the good-natured ribbing.

Lots of Clinton and Obama jokes — not too funny except for the one that said Mrs. Clinton was born in Illinois and Mr. Obama was “born in a manger.”

The trick to any party crashing is to not brag about it, at least while you’re still at the party. Just take an empty seat and look as if you belong. But something went wrong. Just as we were finishing up the first course of duck and escargots terrine, a stern man with a telephone wire in his ear wanted to talk — outside.

We were escorted out into the cold night air. Fortunately, we had attended the rehearsal the day before, so we didn’t miss much — except the mascarpone macaroni and cheese and the chocolate mousse with Mandarin sauce.

—Stephanie Mansfield