Obama takes aim at himself with caustic humour

US President Barack Obama poked fun at himself and what he called a hard year but aimed his most caustic humour at Washington gridlock when the political and media elites gathered at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

“In 2008 my slogan was, ‘Yes we can.’ In 2013, it was control-alt-delete,” Obama joked to an audience studded with film and television stars.

“At one point, things got so bad the 47% called Mitt Romney to apologise,” he said, referring to the 2012 presidential campaign scandal in which the Republican candidate was secretly taped saying that 47% of Americans had become reliant on government handouts.

More than 2,000 guests packed the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, where the capital’s political and media worlds collide every year in lubricated goodwill punctuated by a long dash of glamour on loan from Hollywood. The association marked its 100th year this year.

Obama highlighted some of the low points of his administration’s last year, dwelling on the disastrous rollout of the website for his landmark health insurance reform. “Of course we rolled out Healthcare.gov. That could have gone better,” he deadpanned.

Later he turned on Republican opponents in Congress who are clamouring to repeal the legislation despite higher than expected enrolment figures: “How well does Obamacare have to work before you stop trying to repeal it?”

The president did not spare the cable news networks.

“I just got back from Malaysia,” Obama said. “The lengths you have to travel to get CNN coverage. I think they’re still searching for their table.”

The reference was to CNN’s blanket coverage of the missing Malaysia Airlines airplane that for a time pushed other news off their airwaves.

He also took a jab at Fox News, which he joked was a “shadowy right-wing organisation”.

“Let’s face it, Fox, you’ll miss me when I’m gone. It’ll be harder to convince American people that Hillary was born in Kenya,” he said.

Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton is widely seen as the frontrunner in the 2016 presidential race, though she has been coy about her intention to run.

Obama also took a swipe at Republicans for blocking his bid to raise the minimum wage. “If you want to get paid for not working you should run for Congress just like everyone else,” he said.

In a self-deprecating crack at his own low popularity ratings, Obama referred to his fellow Democrats not wanting to campaign with him for November congressional elections in a wistful joke involving one of his daughters: “I did notice the other day that Sasha needed a speaker for career day and she invited Bill Clinton.”

At the end of his speech, Obama turned the audience’s attention to a video monitor, which failed to work. Kathleen Sebelius, the health secretary who announced her resignation this month after overseeing the rollout of Obamacare, stepped up to the podium to try to fix the technical glitch.