What Racy Joke Did ABC's Jake Tapper Convince Jimmy Kimmel to Drop From His Correspondents' Dinner Routine?

Jimmy Kimmel's White House Correspondents' Dinner routine last month was fairly uneventful, taking shots at President Barack Obama and the GOP candidates hoping for his job.

But speaking with Howard Stern this week, the comedian confided he had one joke that was particularly over the top -- and that it was ABC White House reporter Jake Tapper who convinced him to scrap it.

Via JimRomenesko.com:

KIMMEL: I had some jokes about — like Rick Santorum. I said something like — well, I didn’t say it, but: Newt Gingrich’s campaign is so dead Mitt Romney wants to baptize it and Rick Santorum wants to put it in a jar and show it to his kids.

STERN: You didn’t want any abortion jokes?

KIMMEL: People went like, uh-oh. I ran it by people who go to this thing.

STERN: Who do you run it by?

KIMMEL: There’s a guy named Jake Tapper at ABC News, I ran jokes by him. He’s been there a lot of times. There are a few other people — reporters.

The "put it in a jar and show it to his kids" is less a reference to abortion than to the death of Santorum's infant son and how he and his wife brought the baby home after it died.

For his part, Tapper confirmed to Yahoo News that he did in fact make some suggestions to the comedian. Kimmel's late-night show "Jimmy Kimmel Live" is broadcast on ABC.

"I tried to help Jimmy with the temperature of the room," Tapper wrote in an email. "And yes, I thought that joke would cause the room to turn against him, perhaps even causing a stampede, with the Hilton getting in on the tar and feather concession."