By Julie Miller, Vanity Fair
On Sunday night, President Obama toasted this year's Kennedy Center Honorees--a group so random that he introduced them as "some extraordinary people who have no business being on the same stage together." Among them: Dustin Hoffman, David Letterman, ballerina Natalia Makarova, blues guitarist Buddy Guy, and the members of Led Zeppelin. And while those of us who didn't attend the Washington, D.C., ceremony will have to wait until it airs, on CBS on December 26, to view it in its entirety, the evening's best lines are already circulating the Internet. Take a look at the highlights below--unsurprisingly, the funniest related to the funniest honoree, David Letterman--and weigh in on the best line in the comments below.
President Obama: "I worked with speech writers . . . there is no smooth transition from ballet to Led Zeppelin."
Hillary Clinton: "Dave and I have a history . . . I have been a guest on his show several times, and if you include references to my pant suits, I'm on at least once a week."
Tina Fey: "David Letterman is a professor emeritus at the Here's Some More Rope Institute."
Jimmy Kimmel (on David Letterman's Late Show): "To me it wasn't just a TV show . . . It was the reason I would fail to make love to a live woman for many, many years."
Steven Colbert (comparing Letterman to Johnny Carson): "I knew Johnny, and I loved Johnny. Johnny was beyond reproach. Dave was stupid. Dave was ours. Dave was like us."
Robert De Niro (on Dustin Hoffman): "Before Dustin burst on the scene, it was pretty much O.K. for movie stars to show up, read their lines and, if the director insisted, act a little."
In other clear "bests," Dustin Hoffman appeared to have the best balcony seat among this year's Kennedy Center Honorees. He was placed beside Michelle Obama. And the best (and most unlikely) couple to take an iPhone self-portrait during the weekend's Kennedy Center events: Meryl Streep and Hillary Clinton. Meanwhile, Robert De Niro took the unofficial prize for best curmudgeonly Robert De Niro-style tribute speech, whom he introduced Dustin Hoffman as "a pain in the ass."