Gridiron Dinner: Joe Biden, John Kerry and other close encounters

On Saturday night, I dined with Vice President Joe Biden (me and about 600 other people, that is) and crossed paths with Secretary of State John Kerry in the men’s room, where I got his take on the 2016 presidential campaign. It’s amazing who you can meet if you and every other man in the room are wearing white tie and tails. Weirdly, it’s a great equalizer.

David Horsey Gridiron Dinner illustration.

(David Horsey / Los Angeles Times)

(David Horsey / Los AngelesTimes)

I was fortunate enough to be attending the fancy-dress Gridiron Dinner in Washington. This year, Doyle McManus, a venerable political columnist at The Times, is president of the Gridiron Club, a select group of inside-the-Beltway journalists who have been putting on an annual satirical songfest and meal for the president or vice president since Grover Cleveland was in the White House. As Gridiron’s top potentate, McManus picked me to do the traditional cartoon for the menu (that image is above; Doyle is the bearded guy). Being Gridiron president is kind of a big deal, so most of the folks on The Times' masthead, as well as the top brass of The Times' corporate owner, Tribune Publishing, were in attendance.

That last bit turned out to be especially interesting since Tribune ownership changed hands in a dramatic way a month ago. Michael Ferro, a Chicago tech entrepreneur, took over as chairman of the board and, in short order, picked Justin Dearborn, his friend and business collaborator, to be chief executive. As a result, Ferro found himself sitting at the Gridiron head table next to the vice president while Dearborn had the chair between Kerry and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter.

My own seat was in a far corner with a bad view, but I’m not complaining. I only had to draw a picture to earn my dinner. Ferro’s meal cost him $44.4 million, the price of his controlling share of Tribune stock. My first impression of the new bosses, by the way, is positive. They seem excited about doing great things with the newspaper. Dearborn is moving his family to Los Angeles and Ferro has already bought a house in the city, which, technically, makes them local owners. Trading Chicago winters for L.A.’s perpetual summer already proves they are not dummies.

Both seemed pleased to be at the Gridiron. Dearborn told me he had a surprisingly good time with his dinner companions — Kerry and Carter talked like regular guys, he said. And, of course, that’s the secret of famous and powerful people (except maybe Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump): They are not much different from the rest of us. Heck, they have to go to the bathroom, just like normal human beings.

Which is how I ended up talking to the secretary of State in the little boys’ room. There was a line up for stalls after the third break in a long night of entertainment. Kerry was right behind me. I turned to him, introduced myself and said I was sorry he hadn’t become president because I would have enjoyed drawing him. He laughed and said, “Yeah, the long chin.” Then I remarked on the weirdness of the current presidential campaign. He searched for a word to describe it and finally settled on “sad.”

A urinal opened up and that was the extent of the interview.

My interaction with Kerry was not the only interesting moment of the night. While stepping up for a free bourbon and ice at the bar, I locked eyes with the king of Seattle, the emperor of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. When not busy conquering every corner of the business world, Bezos is also publisher of the Washington Post. He smiled and greeted me as if we had met a dozen times. We had not, but, in this crowd, it seemed as if many of the important people assumed they should know everyone in the room. The former Post publisher, Donald Graham, greeted me enthusiastically at least three times and I got a big hello from former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, the head of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, even though I’ve never met either of them.

Bezos was genuinely friendly, though, which improved my opinion of gazillionaires. So, was Fox News star Megyn Kelly. It helped that I told her I had drawn a cartoon of her slapping Donald Trump, of course. She loved me for that.

Perhaps the coolest encounter of the evening came after the singing was done, after Biden and all the dignitaries had departed and when most of the high-octane schmoozing was over. Standing by himself at the after party, Michael Rezendes was working his way through a small plate of buffalo wings. Rezendes is the Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter for the Boston Globe who was portrayed by Mark Ruffalo in the Best Picture Oscar-winning movie, “Spotlight.”

I escorted my wife over to talk to Rezendes. We chatted about the movie; about how Hollywood had, amazingly, not messed up this reenactment of the Globe’s exposé of the pedophilia scandal in the Catholic Church — how, in fact, the filmmakers had accurately captured the reality of diligent, dedicated, nuts-and-bolts journalism.

My wife asked Rezendes if covering the pedophilia story was the most exciting thing he had ever done. Rezendes said no. Every story gets his heart pumping and his mind churning, he said; each one feels important and, with each one, he hopes to make a difference.

At the end of an evening that highlighted journalism’s connections to power, celebrity and wealth, it was nice to be reminded that the core mission of the news business is to dig out the truth for the sake of those who have no power, no fame and not much money. Even in white tie and tails, we can never forget that.