Self-deprecation has long been a hallmark of presidential appearances at the annual White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Whether riding high or struggling in the polls, a president's surest way to score points with the press and the Washington political establishment is to make fun of himself. While he's also expected to get in a few digs at his opponents, over the years the theme of the dinner has usually focused on a president who's big enough to make jokes at his own expense.

In his remarks to the correspondents association dinner Saturday night, Barack Obama came up with a new formula: Cut the self-deprecation to a minimum and unleash a series of attacks on his adversaries -- and start the performance in a way that seems to mock not just his enemies but the very idea of what it means to be an American.

Obama's routine started not with his own words but with a White House-produced video that juxtaposed a pulsing image of his birth certificate with traditional patriotic symbols -- the flag, an eagle, Uncle Sam, Mount Rushmore -- all to a song called "Real American," best known as part of World Wrestling Federation shows. The video seemed to jeer at conventional notions of patriotism; it was, as Politico's Ben Smith wrote, "crafted in the spirit of 'South Park' and 'Team America World Police' and 'The Colbert Report' in what you could interpret either as an ironic, subversive send-up of American patriotism or as a kind of post-ironic homage." In any event, it seemed almost aggressively nonpresidential. "The presidency seems an odd vehicle, even at a roast, for mocking patriotism," Smith concluded.

Obama's speech began with a riff about the birth certificate controversy, using another video, scenes from "The Lion King," to joke that maybe he really was born in Africa, after all. But the real point was to take a shot at Fox News. "I want to make clear to the Fox News table: That was a joke," Obama said. "That was not my real birth video. That was a children's cartoon."

And then ... a little self-deprecation, of the mildest sort. "I think it is fair to say that when it comes to my presidency, the honeymoon is over," Obama said. "For example, some people now suggest that I'm too professorial. And I'd like to address that head-on, by assigning all of you some reading that will help you draw your own conclusions. Others say that I'm arrogant. But I've found a really great self-help tool for this: my poll numbers." Obama went on to say that "I've even let down my key core constituency -- movie stars," noting that actor Matt Damon had recently criticized him. But that was just to set up a line knocking Damon's performance in the box-office flop "The Adjustment Bureau."

At that point, it was time for some whacks at the opposition: Paul Ryan, Michele Bachmann, Tim Pawlenty, Jon Huntsman, Mitt Romney. Obama suggested that some of them weren't born in the United States. "I hear she was born in Canada," the president said of Bachmann. "Yes, Michele, this is how it starts. Just letting you know."

But the evening's main target was Donald Trump. "No one is happier, no one is prouder to put this birth certificate matter to rest than the Donald," Obama said. "And that's because he can finally get back to focusing on the issues that matter -- like, did we fake the moon landing? What really happened in Roswell? And where are Biggie and Tupac?"

Obama was just getting warmed up on Trump. "All kidding aside, obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience," he said to Trump, who was sitting at a table near the back of the room. "No, seriously -- just recently, in an episode of 'Celebrity Apprentice' at the steak house, the men's cooking team did not impress the judges from Omaha Steaks. And there was a lot of blame to go around. But you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so ultimately, you didn't blame Lil Jon or Meatloaf. You fired Gary Busey. And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. Well handled, sir. Well handled." Trump scowled; the wildly pro-Obama room loved it. They were happy to see Trump, who had engaged in unfounded speculation about Obama's birth certificate, get his comeuppance.

One last shot at Trump -- a mock-up of what a Trump White House & Casino would look like -- and Obama was on to a little more gentle self-deprecation, which was actually a set up to a little self-praise. Obama's writers created a trailer for an imaginary movie, "The President's Speech," in which deficit-cutting Republicans take away funds for Obama's teleprompter. For a moment the president is lost -- the video included previously unseen outtakes of a few Obama flubs during the recording of his weekly address -- until he is rescued by his gaffe-prone vice president, Joe Biden. The music swells. "A president loses his teleprompter, but wins the future," the trailer concludes. After the video, Obama turned serious, making a few remarks about the tornadoes in Alabama and U.S. troops overseas.

The audience might have expected the night's main act, "Saturday Night Live" comedian Seth Meyers, to be a little tougher on the president. It didn't happen. The thrust of Meyers' Obama jokes was that the president is no longer quite as wonderful as he was a few years ago. Surveying the current Republican presidential field, Meyers suggested it was unlikely any can defeat Obama. "I'll tell you who could beat you," Meyers said to the president, sitting just a few feet away. "2008 Barack Obama. You would have loved him." Meyers also mentioned Obama's gray hair, which is as safe a subject as could be imagined; the president himself has talked about his hair in many public appearances. But Meyers' joke -- "If you're hair gets any whiter, the Tea Party is going to endorse it" -- wasn't about Obama at all but was instead a shot at the alleged racism, or perhaps the age, of Obama's opponents.

In the end, Meyers went as easy on Obama as Obama went on himself. If there were any jokes to be had in presiding over a failing economy, running the national debt to unprecedented highs, pushing a still-unpopular national health care proposal into law, losing control of the House of Representatives in a historic landslide, taking over failing auto companies, spending $800 billion with scant success on economic stimulus, fighting the Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to an embarrassing stalemate, and, in the latest phrase to sweep Washington, "leading from behind" -- if there were any jokes in all that, Meyers didn't find them.

In his book "Clinton and Me," White House joke writer Mark Katz described writing a comedy monologue for Bill Clinton's appearance at the 1995 correspondents' dinner. At the time, Clinton, having gone through Whitewater, Travelgate, and other scandals, was filled with rage against his enemies. Katz's job was to try to convince Clinton that the way to deal publicly with that rage, at least as far as the correspondents' dinner was concerned, was to poke a little light fun at himself and not launch an attack on his enemies.

"Self-deprecating humor comes naturally to only the most skillful practitioners of public power," Katz wrote. After giving Clinton a draft of the speech, Katz wrote, "I had the feeling that he couldn't understand why we had handed him pages of self-deprecating jokes."

The president, Katz continued, "had become accustomed to using humor as a barbed weapon. I tried to coax out of him something new -- not Kennedy's entirely self-deprecating voice, nor his old, slightly venomous brand of humor, but a new style of self-effacing wit with a bit of a bite. In the end, Clinton did it his way: self-deprecating jibes, but with an elbow to his attackers, too."

It worked, at least a little, for Clinton. But now Obama has changed the balance once again: The lightest touch of self-deprecation and a lot of whacks at the opposition, all after an "ironic, subversive send-up of American patriotism." For the president, and for his supporters and surrogates in the audience, it couldn't have been a better night.

Byron York, The Examiner's chief political correspondent, can be contacted at byork@washingtonexaminer.com. His column appears on Tuesday and Friday, and his stories and blogposts appear on ExaminerPolitics.com.