Correspondents’ Dinner Headliner Kimmel Insists: ‘It’s Hard to Make Fun’ of ‘Cool Character’ Obama

“It's hard to make fun of Obama in general because he’s a cool character,” ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, the “headliner” for this Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, told Reuters, insisting that “outside of his ears, there’s not a whole lot” to joke about.

Kimmel, of course, had no trouble coming up with anti-Republican candidate zingers. Reuters reporter Mary Milliken, in a Tuesday dispatch, relayed Kimmel’s “hope is to have a ‘nice mixture of prepared and off-the-cuff comedy’ for the black tie gala.” She passed along “a few hints of the ammunition is in his joke holster,” starting with his take on the presumptive nominee: “Mitt Romney looks like a Sears catalog model.”

Kimmel on Santorum, Palin and Cain:

* On former candidate Rick Santorum: “I am fascinated by Rick Santorum ... and the array of things he’s fighting for. Why bring pornography into it? What does that have to do with running for the White House? You are losing the male vote basically by going against pornography.”

* On former candidate for vice president Sarah Palin: “Now she is stationed up in Alaska all the time, she doesn’t have a professional hair or makeup artist any more, she is starting to look like a mom on ‘Toddlers and Tiaras.’ Her hair looks like bees are doing it for her.”

* On his picks for Republican VP: “Herman Cain is a lot of fun and the pizza angle is an endless fountain of comedy. (Rapper) Flavor Flav would be great...Chris Christie, who seems to gain 10 pounds every time I see him, would be a great vice president.”

But on President Barack Obama, Kimmel could only come up with an upbeat prediction of success: “If I was filling out a bracket, my bet would be that he would win.”

The headline over Milliken’s piece on Reuters and Yahoo: “Kimmel to ‘feast on stupid comments’ at White House dinner.” As if Obama’s never made a stupid comment.

-- Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center. Click here to follow Brent Baker on Twitter.