Biden steals the show

Joe Biden knocked 'em dead at this year's annual Gridiron Club dinner:

Biden poked fun at Obama’s charismatic persona by explaining that “he couldn’t make it because he’s busy preparing for Easter -- he thinks it's about him," Biden dead-panned.

Biden noted that Obama is the first president to skip the dinner in his first year in office since Grover Cleveland in 1885, when the journalists’ club was founded. He even came up with an excuse for Cleveland: “He was married to a 21 year old girl and had better things to do.”

Biden told the fancy-dress audience of 600 guests that newspapers still have a vital role to play: “You can’t house-break a puppy on the Internet."

As Biden saw it, it wouldn’t hurt for Rahm Emanuel -- a fellow attendee whose foul mouthed reputation has followed him from Congress to the White House -- to master some house-breaking skills as well. The walls between his office and that of Obama’s chief of staff “are paper thin,” Biden noted, likening the experience to “listening to ‘Sesame Street’ where every day is brought to you by the letter ‘F.’”

Biden congratulated Ahnold Schwarzenegger “on a really great speech,” adding, “I can hardly wait for the English translation.”