Washington gridlock butt of Obama jokes at White House correspondents’ dinner

President Barack Obama poked fun at himself and what he called a hard year but aimed his most caustic humour at Washington gridlock on Saturday when the political and media elites gathered at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

“In 2008 my slogan was, ‘Yes we can.’ In last year, it was control-alt-delete,” Obama joked to an audience also studded with film and television stars.

“At one point, things got so bad the 47 per cent called Mitt Romney to apologise,” he said, referring to 2012 presidential campaign scandal in which the Republican candidate was secretly taped saying that 47 per cent of Americans have become reliant on government handouts.

More than 2,000 guests packed the ballroom of the Washington Hilton, where the capital’s political and media worlds collide every year in lubricated goodwill punctuated by a long dash of glamour on loan from Hollywood. The association marked its 100th year this year.

The president highlighted some of the low points of his administration’s last year, dwelling on the disastrous rollout of the website for his landmark health insurance reform legislation.

“Of course we rolled out HealthCare.gov. That could have gone better,” he deadpanned.

Later he turned on Republican opponents in Congress who are clamouring to repeal the legislation despite higher than expected enrollment figures in the government health care exchanges: “How well does Obamacare have to work before you stop trying to repeal it?”