Spring is here and with it the traditional "roasting" of politicians by the media behind closed doors and theoretically off the record. That means it leaks the day after.
Naturally, President Clinton and his "annus horribilis" was the main butt of the journalistic satire and he took it amazingly well and even ridiculed himself.
At the Gridiron dinner, where the roasting of presidents has been going on for the past 114 years, Mr Clinton told the white tie guests, who included most of his Cabinet: "It was a year I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy."
After a pause he added: "I take that back."
Earlier he had watched four journalists dressed in blue Gap dresses and called "Monica-ettes" dance and sing.
The Bruce Springsteen song "Born in the USA" was re-worked as "Caught by his DNA."
The President re-worked his famous line about his birthplace - "I still believe in a place called Hope" - saying: "I want you all to know that through it all, I still believe in a place called . . . Hell."
He claimed he has already written his memoirs and held up poster-size book jackets he said he had rejected.
One was "I'm OK, You're OK, They're Out to Get Me". That was too paranoid, he said.
"Beyond Hope" was too defeatist. He settled on "My Story - And I'm Sticking to It."
At the earlier Radio and TV Correspondents' dinner, the President held a mock press conference with a "foreign leader" in a Ruritarian uniform beside him.
For the past year, the only chance the White House press corps got to ask him questions about the Monica Lewinsky affair was at joint press conferences for visiting leaders.
Mr Clinton wise-cracked his way through a "press conference" anticipating questions about whether he had read Monica's book or looked at her interview with Barbara Walters.
"No. I didn't read it. No. I didn't see it."
While most of the journalists loved it, there were critics who took offence at the President being able to joke about his own impeachment.
Tony Snow, who hosts a Sunday news show on Fox TV, said "Wow, I can't wait for next year's dinner and all the rib tickling jokes about genocide in Kosovo."
It should be said that the two functions took place just before the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia had started.
The White House brushed aside the critics. Amy Weiss, a spokeswoman, said that "Anyone who thought the President's remarks were not funny must have checked their humour at the door.
"These dinners are a time and a place to be self-deprecating and funny and show off your wit, which is exactly what the President did," she said.
She admitted that the President's speech-writers had worked on his script. But so what? They are paid to polish his phrases.
Clark Judge, a speech-writer for President Reagan, told an Agence France-Presse reporter that Mr Clinton had performed well as a stand-up comic but he agreed with critics that it may not have been in good taste.
"The thing that's hard about Clinton are these failings, the sort of basic betrayals of trust and treating the office in a way that is beneath the office, and it's a little creepy for him to be joking about that."
But Mr Judge acknowledged the President has to make the best of it as he must make appearances at the traditional "roasts" and take his medicine.
Only one president, Grover Cleveland who died in 1908, refused to appear at the Gridiron dinner and he has been jeered at since.
President Reagan's wife Nancy made brilliant use of the Gridiron dinner to defuse the media criticism about her extravagances in the White House such as buying huge amounts of expensive china.
She came on stage in shabby hand-me-downs and brought down the house singing a skit on herself as "Second-hand Rose." That was the end of the media criticism.
There is always the danger that the lampooning of a President, even in an "off the record" setting, can go too far. At the Radio and TV Correspondents' dinner three years ago, the MC, Don Imus, was booed by the audience when he made some crass references to the Clintons' marriage as they sat in the audience.
This year Mrs Clinton missed the Gridiron dinner as she was travelling in North Africa but would she have seen the funny side of the Monica-ettes?
In May, the third "roast" is coming up in the form of the White House Correspondents' dinner. Last year, there were frowns among the organisers when the conservative Spectator magazine invited Paula Jones as a guest and she was the news hit of the evening. Big name TV journalists posed beside her for pictures and her autograph but her table was out of President Clinton's view unless he craned his neck.
This year the betting is that some media organisation will have the bad taste to invite Monica Lewinsky to get her into the same room as the Clintons.