My favorite line from last night's Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner

The Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner is an annual charity fund raiser for Catholic Charities, named in honor of the former governor of New York and the first Catholic to run for President. The first dinner was held in 1945, a year after Smith died, and since 1960, when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon appeared at the dinner, it has been an election-year tradition, for the most part, that two major party candidates attend. There have been exceptions. In 1984, Walter Mondale opted out saying he needed time to prepare for a Presidential debate with Ronald Reagan. In 1996 the Archdiocese of New York opted not to invite the Presidential candidates because John Cardinal O'Connor was furious at President Clinton for vetoing a bill outlawing some late-term abortions. The candidates weren't invited in 2004 either because of Democrat (and Catholic) John Kerry's pro-choice stances.

However, both John McCain and then Barack Obama came to last night's white-tie dinner to trade one-liners. My personal favorite was this from Obama: “I think it is a tribute to American democracy that with two weeks left and a hard-fought election, the two of us could come together, and sit down at the same dinner table without preconditions.”