Who Are The VIPs At The WHCD?

Well, that was fun, wasn't it? The White House Correspondents' Dinner was Saturday night, and it brought out a rich mishmash of celebrities, reporters, political types, you know the sort. Just a nice, quiet evening in with a lavish dinner and, oh, 2,000-plus of your closest friends. It's a major event — a scene to be seen, as it were — and as such, you can bet everybody would love to get to sit up front, next to the president and first lady. So, who was sitting up front at the White House Correspondents' Dinner?

The annual blowout, complete with a light roasting of the President, has become something of an obsession in recent years, and it's not hard to see why. Who wouldn't want to get drunk in the same room as ultra-conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, after all?

But sad to say, not everybody gets to have such a unique starring turn for the evening as sitting alongside President Obama and First Lady Michelle. And, even if you're lucky enough to get up there, there's no guarantee that you'll be recognized. But there were three pretty major faces up there on Saturday, one of whom you definitely couldn't miss.

Cecily Strong, White House Correspondents' Dinner Host

It's sure hard to miss Cecily up there, not least of all because she'll be hosting this little shindig. Strong is a current cast member on Saturday Night Live (formerly the host of the show's Weekend Update), an actress, and perhaps most notably, a person who's terrified of hosting the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Which, obviously, could be a little concerning, but no need to worry — Strong is a great performer, and she's undoubtedly got what it takes to entertain the assembled crowd.

Major Garrett, CBS News Chief White House Correspondent

Major Garrett (the guy on the left) has had a pretty distinguished career as a White House correspondent for two different outlets — Fox News, a notoriously conservative cable news channel, and CBS News, a station more firmly in the mainstream. He's shown a firm tenacity over the years at getting Obama to answer his questions and pressing the matter if the answers ever seem a little half-baked. This insistent nature sometimes has led to some testy moments, suffice to say.

Olivier Knox, Yahoo News Chief White House Correspondent

Yahoo News' big hire from a couple years back is sitting up at the front this year: Olivier Knox, formerly of Agence France-Presse (AFP). Knox is an old hand at this sort of thing by now, having attended the dinner before, but having its correspondent up front must be a thrill for Yahoo. It's a real sign of the times in a way, having a representative of an entirely digital news outlet breaking bread with the so-called "Leader of the Free World."

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