Former President Bill Clinton pitched in for an absent President Obama at the annual spring Gridiron Club dinner on Saturday night.
“I’ve been wanting to stand in for President Obama for a long time,” Clinton confided, joking that the current occupant of the Oval Office was busy “polishing his Nobel Peace Prize.”
Clinton said he regretted having come to dinner without “either of the Bushes,” referring to his disaster-relief partners: George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. “I’m used to having them by my side when I walk into a disaster area,” Clinton said.
In a more serious vein, Clinton predicted that the Democrats would succeed in steering health care reform through Congress. “It may not happen in my lifetime or in [former vice president] Dick Cheney's, but hopefully by Easter,” he said.
The last time the nation’s 42nd president appeared at the Gridiron podium was in 1999, when he was but a few weeks past having survived a Senate impeachment trial. And he proved on Saturday that he still has the right touch for entertaining the elite audience of about 600, which includes the 65 club members and their guests.
“This feels like old times being here,” Clinton said. “Or maybe it’s more like that movie ‘Groundhog Day.'" But some things have changed: “Nowadays," Clinton said, "my favorite ****tail is Lipitor on the rocks.”