Senator Susan Collins attended the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday as a guest of the National Journal magazine, a well-respected weekly that covers politics and policy issues.

The dinner is a big confab with Washington reporters, the President and other elected and government officials. The event has generated some bad press. In the 1990s, Don Imus, the radio disc jockey, told some off-color jokes about the Clintons' marriage. In 2006, Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report either spoke truth to power or embarrassed President Bush with his sharp sarcasm and ironic humor.

The White House Correspondents Association, which organizes the event, lost its nerve after Colbert's performance and invited Rich Little, who is known for his impersonations, in 2007.

Craig Ferguson, the host of CBS' "Late Late Show," performed on Saturday night.

The event was first held in 1914, but it really took off in 1987 when Michael Kelly, a journalist who was killed in Iraq at the start of the war in 2003, invited Fawn Hall, Oliver North's secretary in the White House. The next year Kelly invited Donna Rice, former Senator Gary Hart's flame on board the yacht, Monkey Business.

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