At the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night, one of the highlights of the annual press-pols-Hollywood-techies schmoozefest was the video that played before President Barack Obama came on that was a mashup of the HBO comedy “Veep” and the real thing, Vice President Joe Biden.
Viral Video: VeepStakes and Obama Tech Jokes at #WHCD
The Healthcare.gov mess and not the NSA scandals got the attention this year at the annual schmoozefest.
The best line made fun of Netflix’s political hit “House of Cards” and its proclivity to have star Kevin Spacey speak directly into the camera. “Yes, we can all look directly into the camera, Kevin,” said “Veep” star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, while looking directly into the camera. “The point is, you’re not supposed to.”
Obama also got off some zingers at the event — where the casts of “House of Cards” and “Scandal” mingled in perhaps the most potent Twitter meme opportunity of all time — several of which were tech related.
“Of course, we rolled out Healthcare.gov. That could have gone better,” the President said. “In 2008, my slogan was, ‘Yes we can,’ [but] in 2013, my slogan was ‘Control, Alt, Delete.’”
The NSA surveillance scandals that continue to resonate in Silicon Valley got less attention than you might have thought, given the potential for comic gold.
Still. “Colorado legalized marijuana this year,” joked Obama. “I just hope it doesn’t lead to a bunch of paranoid people who think the government is out to get them, and listening to their phone calls.”
But it was quickly back to the Healthcare.gov Web debacle, with Obama showing off a video clip that did not work. Then, out of the wings, former Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius — who oversaw the failed rollout of the Healthcare.gov site — came to make the geek fix. Get it? She really is a techie! (Not!)
And more on that topic from comedian Joel McHale, who headlined the event: “Over eight million people have signed up for Obamacare, which is impressive, until you realize that Ashley Tisdale has 12 million Twitter followers.”
Heh.
Here’s the Biden/Dreyfus video to enjoy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=da5tjfpKyac#t=159
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
