Politics feasts on Obama’s slice of wry

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President Obama’s approval ratings may be down among the American public. But at least, he said before a black-tie dinner crowd in Washington on Saturday night, he remains popular in ‘the country of my birth.’’

That’s the way the laugh-lines go at the annual White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner, where they never let a good story get in the way of jokes. This is the sort of event where a president admits to a little disappointment -- Obama really was angling for the Nobel Prize for Physics.

This a big deal, this dinner, the president said. ‘I work a lot, and so I wasn’t sure that I should actually come tonight,’ Obama told his audience. ‘[Vice President Joe] Biden talked me into it,’’ he said, alluding to Biden’s open-mic comment at the signing of the historic healthcare reform bill.

‘He leaned over and he said, ‘Mr. President, this is no ordinary dinner. This is a big ... meal.’ ‘It’s been quite a year,’ said Obama, making his second appearance at the correspondents’ dinner.

‘Lots of ups, lots of downs, except for my approval ratings, which have just gone down. But that’s politics. It doesn’t bother me. In fact, I know my approval ratings are still very high in the country of my birth.’

For more details, see The Swamp.

-- Mark Silva