If there were an East Coast version of the Academy Awards, it would look something like Washington’s annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which took place Saturday evening at the Washington Hilton.

Even though the dinner, with its 3,000 guests, is the main event, it was just part of a busy weekend of parties and festivities, in which big-name celebrities, athletes and personalities rub shoulders with big-for-the-Beltway types (if only to remind us Washingtonians what real celebrity looks like). Indeed, it may be the only time you can see Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke in the same room as actor Terence Howard. Or onetime American Idol contestant Ace Young standing next to … Henry Kissinger? Isaiah Washington from “Grey’s Anatomy” and Michael Chertoff? Alex Trebek and Clarence Thomas? Did some sort of cosmic tilt just occur?