So glad we didn't go out and buy a new dress

Okay, so this is our post about the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, the annual make-nice-with-the-prezzie bash where painfully geeky Washington journalists rub elbows with big-name Hollywood types. And once again, it drove home the central, hideous point about Washington reporting: that most successful reporters become way, way too close to their subjects, so that you get the scene of the entire press corps toasting the president, giving him standing ovations, etc. We even overheard Martha Raddatz--a seemingly grounded, intelligent reporter for ABC--exclaim maniacly to a tall, well-medaled military fellow, "I'm in heaven! Aren't you in heaven?" This was just before she hugged Paul Wolfowitz.

However, we were able to take some lessons from our attendance at tonight's festivities:

Barack Obama: hot. very, very hot. He could be, like, not only our first black president, but our first really hot president.
Andrew Sullivan: not hot. (disclaimer: we're not even sure it was him, but if it was, he looks terrible.)

While Constantine from American Idol and Richard Gere were both swarmed with autograph-seekers, a stunning Helen Mirren was free to eat her crab hush puppies in peace. And we're pretty sure almost no one at all was talking to Salman Rushdie, sitting at a back table sans the famously babely wife. It's the eye job, Sal; not even the jihadi recognize you any more.