Day 12-13: Obama Pushes Stimulus Plan, Attends Comedy Dinner
President Obama spent this weekend touting his stimulus package and attending to a few social occasions, one of his own making.
In his weekly radio address on Saturday, the president urged the Senate to pass his economic stimulus plan and pledged tighter control on the financial bailout in the wake of reports of $18 billion in bonuses paid to Wall Street employees last year.
Saturday night, the president attended the annual black-tie Alfalfa Club dinner, where the political and business elite join together for jokes. Of note, Mr. Obama's Republican rival Sen. John McCain and his running mate Gov. Sarah Palin both attended as well.
The event is closed to the press, but the White House released excerpts of the president's remarks where he made fun of his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and made light that the event was founded to honor confederate general Robert E. Lee. You can read the president's jokes below.
On Sunday, the president was interviewed by NBC's Matt Lauer during the Super Bowl pre-game show. He said he was confident he would get bipartisan support for the stimulus plan.
"I am confident that by the time we actually have the final package on the floor that we are going to see substantial support and people are going to say this is a serious effort, it has no earmarks, we're going to be trimming out things that are not relevant to putting people back to work right now," Mr. Obama said.
In the interview, he also said the peaceful Iraqi elections over the weekend were "good news" for U.S. troops and that he could assure that many of them will be home by next year. (You can read the whole interview as transcribed by the White House here.)
Mr. Obama then hosted a bipartisan group of lawmakers at the White House for a Super Bowl party.
And here are the excerpts of remarks released by the White House from the Alfalfa dinner:
I am seriously glad to be here tonight at the annual Alfalfa dinner. I know that many you are aware that this dinner began almost one hundred years ago as a way to celebrate the birthday of General Robert E. Lee. If he were here with us tonight, the General would be 202 years old. And very confused.Now, this hasn't been reported yet, but it was actually Rahm's idea to do the swearing-in ceremony again. Of course, for Rahm, every day is a swearing-in ceremony.
But don't believe what you read. Rahm Emanuel is a real sweetheart.
No, it's true. Every week the guy takes a little time away to give back to the community. Just last week he was at a local school, teaching profanity to poor children.
But these are the kind of negotiations you have to deal with as President. In just the first few weeks, I've had to engage in some of the toughest diplomacy of my life. And that was just to keep my Blackberry. I finally agreed to limit the number of people who could email me. It's a very exclusive list. How exclusive?
Everyone look at the person sitting on your left. Now look at the person sitting on your right. None of you have my email address.