Capital's Gridiron Club Serves Up 'Ribs'

IT'S almost cherry-blossom season again in Washington, and another spring phenomenon occurred here: the annual Gridiron Club dinner. Gridiron is made up of senior members of the Washington press corps. The club traditionally entertains the President of the United States and other figures in the administration, the Congress, and the Supreme Court with satirical skits.

Godfrey (Budge) Sperling Jr., The Christian Science Monitor's senior Washington columnist (and longtime breakfast host), is this year's Gridiron president.

Harvey Wood, chairman of the Christian Science Board of Directors, attended, along with Richard J. Cattani and Richard Nenneman, the Monitor's editor and editor in chief respectively. Netty Douglass, manager of the Christian Science Publishing Society, which publishes the Monitor, and John H. Hoagland Jr., a trustee of the Publishing Society, also were part of the delegation during the weekend event.

Among the themes in the skits at this year's dinner, the 106th, were the valor of the American forces during the Gulf war ("Stormin' Norman's Desert Band," sung to the tune of "Alexander's Ragtime Band") and the difficulty the Democrats are having finding presidential candidates for 1992. One skit, "April in Baghdad," spotlighted the beleaguered former US ambassador to Iraq; "I'm Sununu," sung to the tune of "That's Amore," poked fun at the White House chief of staff John Sununu. US Secretary of State J ames Baker III admired President Bush's 91 percent approval rating. The president was his good friend, Mr. Baker then added, "but even I don't like him that well."