WH Correspondents Association Dinner

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 2:01 am

Stream it live... now.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/li ... 09c30152a8

(Edited) 10:45PM: It's over now. Michelle Wolf's standup routine was cringe-worthy but funny as hell.

Sarah Huckleberry Sandbager really enjoyed herself -- her expressions were priceless. Like death sucking a lemon.

Cartoon Trump at the dinner.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 5:10 am

I loved her wrap-up - she’s so right, the press helped create Trumpenstein, and they're cashing in on covering him.

Meanwhile Flint’s water is still dirty, and dozens of cities around the country also have unsafe lead levels in the water - among many other serious social ills that the press barely has time to cover.

Burning Petard · Post by **Burning Petard** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:52 am

I too noted the end of the featured comedy monologue was a very strong slam at CNN. I watched the thing on CNN. I was particularly pissed off after the Paul Ryan video (which was a nice attack on fake news) that CNN thought they had to bring in two talking heads to tell us what we had just watched and heard, and cut out was going on at that point on the podium.

snailgate

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 3:42 pm

CSPAN is the only place to watch things like the WHCA dinner and live congressional hearings - otherwise the talking heads always interrupt.

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 6:24 pm

BoSoxGal wrote:CSPAN is the only place to watch things like the WHCA dinner and live congressional hearings - otherwise the talking heads always interrupt.

Not the only place. My WaPo link above had excellent coverage -- totally raw feed, unedited, and uncensored -- with no editorial comments by talking heads. With HD resolution and a head set I almost felt like I was in the room... and probably better.

As for live congressional hearings I do view them on CSPAN. They're often better than Sominex.

Scooter · Post by **Scooter** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 10:37 pm

Michelle Wolf got it just right

“Thank you!”

That’s how comedian Michelle Wolf answered Sean Spicer’s declaration that her headlining stand-up set at the the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner was “a disgrace.” Her response is instructive: To Wolf, an insult from Spicer is an accolade – and accolades, surely, would be an insult. She’s right.

Wolf managed Saturday night to scandalize the majority of Washington’s tuxedo-clad intelligentsia with a barrage of bon mots that, in the eyes of much of the press and political establishment, weren’t really so bon at all. The speech, these pundits have argued, wasn’t amusing; it was lewd, and worse than that, it was mean.

Wolf faced particular criticism for (besides all that sex stuff) her satire of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who apparently was a profile in courage for sitting still with pursed lips while someone told jokes about her — “to her face!” These commentators spun the strange narrative that Wolf went after Sanders for her appearance, when in reality Wolf’s barbs centered on the press secretary’s falsehood-filled performance on the White House podium.

“She burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye,” Wolff said of Sanders. Correct, on both counts — and many would rejoice at such an endorsement of their eye makeup. Callous attacks on women for their looks, even after Saturday night, still belong to the president who refused to attend Saturday night’s event — not to the comedian who skewered his cohorts.

All the same, countless journalists rallied behind Sanders, the same woman who spends her days lying to them. And that says a lot more about them than it does about Wolf’s routine. Everyone who told Wolf to read the room is missing the point: The room, and the misplaced notion of a “special” night to celebrate the “special” relationship between the press and the presidency that brought everyone to it on Saturday, is precisely the problem.

Wolf, according to the commentariat, violated a sacred standard of decency that defines the correspondents’ dinner every year. The comedian should roast people, yes, but she should do it at a suitably low temperature for this town’s all-too-tender egos. Wolf broke protocol by turning on the broiler. Yet the figures she scorched have shattered norms that are far more important than an unspoken prohibition on vagina jokes.

The correspondents’ dinner supposedly celebrates the rapport that journalists have with the people they cover. This three-course fete of access journalism has always made some skeptics queasy, but after the Trump administration’s active attempts to undermine every organization in the room Saturday that doesn’t treat the president as an unassailable dear leader, it’s hard to pretend that the fourth estate and its subjects can carry on a relationship that’s adversarial and respectful all at once.

That Wolf’s performance was not “normal” for the correspondents’ dinner is a testament to its timeliness and necessity — nothing is “normal” right now, and pretending otherwise out of a false sense of the fourth estate’s friendship with the executive would have been the real disgrace. Wolf called the Trump administration out for tearing down democracy. Then, the people who are supposed to care most about holding autocrats to account called her out in turn for, essentially, not being chummy enough.

That persistent chumminess is why Wolf’s performance, in the end, wasn’t really for the press. It was about us. “You guys love breaking news, and you did it,” Wolf said to CNN. “You broke it.” To everyone else, she said: “You helped create this monster, and now you’re profiting off of him.” Instead of listening — to that or to Wolf’s final line, “Flint still doesn’t have clean water” — we got grumpy on Twitter. Which means Wolf did a better job of defending the First Amendment than those who say that’s our business.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:57 pm

That’s a great assessment - thanks for sharing as I’ve exhausted my WashPo access for the month.

Scooter · Post by **Scooter** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:16 am

BoSoxGal wrote:I’ve exhausted my WashPo access for the month.

Use the anonymous/incognito function in your browser - in Chrome Ctrl+Shift+n opens an incognito window, browsing history doesn't track and any cookies are deleted on exit, so sites can't track how much you have used their sites; I'm sure that IE and Edge have similar functionality.

It may be enough to get around those limits to set browser cookie settings to "keep local data only until exit" or its equivalent. Then every time the browser is closed, tracking of how many articles you have read gets cleared.

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:33 am

(CNN)Comedian Michelle Wolf's savage takedown of everyone from President Donald Trump to White House press secretary Sarah Sanders to the media was -- and will be -- the talk of Saturday Night's White House correspondents' dinner in Washington.

Some -- mostly on the left -- saw it as a speak-truth-to-power moment à la Stephen Colbert's speech at the 2006 White House correspondents' dinner. Others -- mostly on the right -- viewed it as a vile, hate-filled address that was neither funny nor appropriate.

Most journalists in the room -- and I was among them -- were largely quiet during Wolf's speech, particularly the second half when she got very personal about Sanders. (No, this does not mean journalists are humorless or can't laugh at themselves -- so save it.)

I took a bunch of my notes on my phone during Wolf's speech. I thought I'd share them -- and expand on them -- here. These are in no order other than how they occurred to me. (You can watch the whole speech yourself here.)

Wolf had zero interest in playing to the room
Introducing the "Daily Show" comic, White House Correspondents' Association President Margaret Talev praised Wolf as someone who was very much not part of the world of Washington. That was seen as a good thing, given that the criticism of Washington and its denizens since the election of Trump is that they/we are deeply out of touch with normal Americans. (A coastal comedian is not exactly "regular" people, but whatever.) I wonder whether Talev thought Wolf's I-could-care-less-about-any-of-you approach was such a great idea after the comedian's speech.

Most comedians who speak at the correspondents' dinner take a fair number of shots at the attendees in the room. But they also play along with theme of the night, which attempts to be a celebration of the free and independent media as well as a chance to shine a light on some of the best journalists in the country.

Wolf didn't do that. She wanted to napalm the room. And she did. Unapologetically.

Wolf went for lots of low-hanging fruit
There are LOTS of way to go after Sanders. I personally think that she is overly antagonistic to the reporters who cover the White House and misleads on the regular. But to make fun of Sanders' makeup? ("I think she's very resourceful, like she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies," said Wolf.) Like, really?

I know lots of liberals will -- and already have via Twitter -- painted the attacks on Sanders as the press secretary getting what she deserved. I don't subscribe to that idea. Sanders showed up, sat on the dais and played along. She knew she was likely to get made fun of. But she would have no reasonable expectation that Wolf would go after her looks and refer to her as an "Uncle Tom, but for white women who disappoint other white women."
I'm stunned that Sanders sat five feet away from Wolf and just took it.

Being funny is one thing. Bullying people because you can is another. And Wolf's treatment of Sanders was bullying.

And, yes, by the way, Trump is a massive bully. Making fun of a disabled reporter, stereotyping ethnic groups, attacking reporters for how they look -- all of that stuff is totally and completely unacceptable. And he knows exactly what he is doing, which makes it worse.

But two wrongs don't make it right. Because Trump bullied a disabled reporter doesn't mean Wolf should be able to bully Sarah Sanders. Bullying is bullying. And it's wrong. Always.

Wolf's criticism of the media was (generally) on point
The most powerful line of Wolf's speech, which will inevitably get overshadowed by what she said about Sanders, was this on the media and Trump:
"He has helped you sell your papers and your books and your TV. You helped create this monster and now you are profiting from him."

The first sentence there is 100% right. It is absolutely beyond debate that Trump has been good for the news business. The amount of news he creates coupled with the number of people who consume news about him has made cable news and print media more relevant (and profitable) than ever before.

The second sentence I take some issue with. Yes, cable ran Trump's primary speeches because he said and did things that no one else would do -- and that people would watch. And, yes, when I was at The Washington Post, I wrote about Trump regularly because he said and did things that no one else did.

But that, to me, is different than "creating" Trump. Donald Trump's candidacy was formed and sharpened by an angry and embittered GOP electorate who was sick of their own party, of Washington, of the media, of everything. He was rising whether the media covered him wall to wall or not; he was the angry id of the GOP. The media didn't create that.

The abortion stuff was beyond the pale
Here's Wolf's joke about Vice President Mike Pence's opposition to abortion: "He thinks abortion is murder which, first of all, don't knock it 'til you try it — and when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you've got to get that baby out of there."

Does anyone think this joke is funny? You can hate abortion and think it is murder. You can feel as though it's not the government's business what you do with your body and how you handle your own life. But, does anyone celebrate abortion -- even jokingly?

Wolf got exactly what she wanted
Don't be fooled: Wolf knew exactly what she was doing on Saturday night. She knew that the speech -- at least in parts -- was likely to go over like a lead balloon in the room. And that it would stir huge amounts of controversy in its wake.

THAT WAS THE POINT.

Ask yourself this: Did the average person know who Wolf was before Saturday night? (I will admit, I did not. And, yes, I know Wolf had never heard of me either.) Search interest in her soared last night and continued to spike Sunday morning, according to Google Trends. She is the talk of every Sunday talk show. She will be a regular topic on cable TV -- and late-night TV -- this week.

On a related note, her Netflix series, "The Break With Michelle Wolf" -- comes on May 27. She couldn't buy better publicity for that show than she got with her speech on Saturday night.

Sue U · Post by **Sue U** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 2:01 pm

Ask yourself this: Did the average person know who Wolf was before Saturday night? (I will admit, I did not. ... )

Dude, if you are allegedly in the "news" business and you didn't know who Michelle Wolf was before this weekend, you need to retire or otherwise GTFO. Right. Now. You should be embarrassed to have even written this, and be even more ashamed to be collecting a paycheck from a "media company."

On a related note, her Netflix series, "The Break With Michelle Wolf" -- comes on May 27.

See? She's such an unknown that she's got her own Netflix series.

Wolf did not go after Sanders for her looks. She went after Sanders (and Kellyanne Conway) for her shameless lying, particularly in the service of a President who actually does insult women for their looks, on the regular, and whose administration is an affront to women generally -- both in terms of personal behavior and public policy.

I thought she was hilarious and right on target. She could have been a lot tougher on virtually everyone there.

ETA:

Oh, on further investigation I find that the article Meade posted without attribution was by Journamalism's Shame, Chris Cilliza. That explains a lot.

wesw · Post by **wesw** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 3:18 pm

hey!

don t be copyin' Kenny Do It without attribution!

you know Kenny do it first!

that s plagaramism!

I have heard of Mike Wolff.....

is Michele his wife?

of that s right, she only has one F

wait til the girls softball teams chime in.....

I have to say that trump is the better comedian.

diamond and silk are better journalists than most of the lot that were there.

at least they are honest and really support free speech.

but I haven t paid gob yet so I should just shut up......

RayThom · Post by **RayThom** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 4:00 pm

Scooter wrote:
BoSoxGal wrote:I’ve exhausted my WashPo access for the month.
Use the anonymous/incognito function in your browser - in Chrome Ctrl+Shift+n opens an incognito window, browsing history doesn't track and any cookies are deleted on exit, so sites can't track how much you have used their sites...

And if you use Firefox / Google click on the menu grid at the top, far right and then choose "New Private Window." You should have the same results as Scooter's Ctrl+Shift+n.

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 5:38 pm

You guys are my heroes!

BoSoxGal · Post by **BoSoxGal** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 5:48 pm

I can’t believe anyone outside of Trump’s inner circle would outcry over Wolf’s jokes about Sanders - Sanders is a lying liar who lies, and who behaves with arrogance and disgust much of the time when she’s asked reasonable questions about her boss’s words and actions. She deserves to be the butt of a few jokes, which is all that was directed at her.

On this theory, Obama was bullying Trump when he skewered him from the dais in 2011 at the WHCA dinner.

Econoline · Post by **Econoline** » Mon Apr 30, 2018 7:23 pm

MajGenl.Meade · Post by **MajGenl.Meade** » Tue May 01, 2018 5:05 am

Sue U wrote: Wolf did not go after Sanders for her looks. She went after Sanders (and Kellyanne Conway) for her shameless lying

Bullshit. Wolf special-pleading about make-up? bullshit

"I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. Like, she burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like, maybe she's born with it; maybe it's lies."

Smoky eye PLUS born with it. Oh yeah; I geddit! F-all to do with lies; everything to do with that gotch eye Sanders has. I've said elsewhere that much of what Wolf said was funny. In the spirit of the event.

But to attack a woman's looks? I don't remember all you feminists being so understanding before; call a woman "fat" and you're all over everything. But as long as you don't like the target, it's OK to make jokes about a physical defect because she is (and she is) a regular participant in telling falsehoods?

And I doubt such highly intelligent, self-righteous high flyers as inhabit this place (if the cap fits, wear it) are "average people". [Average people of course being the ones who do programme development for Netflix]. I too would guess that the average person had never heard of Wolf and I for one will be delighted to never hear of her again.

If Sanders vanishes first, then that's all to the good too.

Crackpot · Post by **Crackpot** » Tue May 01, 2018 9:42 am

Attacking someone’s good eyeshadow?! That was a complement albeit backhanded.

rubato · Post by **rubato** » Tue May 01, 2018 10:27 am

This a the weakest performance I have seen. Cécily Strong , Craig Ferguson, Stephen Colbert and Obama himself were all better. Her material was just not that clever. The supposed comment about SHS s appearance was mild compared to her jokes about Christie and McConnell. Mild as in nearly invisible.

Yrs,
Rubato

Burning Petard · Post by **Burning Petard** » Tue May 01, 2018 1:44 pm

In all the kerfuffel, I see everyone carefully ignoring her final target--CNN. Four talking heads endlessly discussing the same distracting topics.
The News? CNN you broke it, meanwhile Flint still does not have clean water.

snailgate

ex-khobar Andy · Post by **ex-khobar Andy** » Tue May 01, 2018 1:51 pm

I haven't seen Wolf's performance but I have read bits of it. I think Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a monstrously evil woman who routinely lies for Trump. If she does not know that she is lying (a distinct possibility) then she is every bit as stupid as Trump.

Having said that, some of you might recall a letter which I sent to the UK Ambassador to Saudi Arabia (where I was then working) pleading that the planned invasion of Iraq (March 2003) was a huge mistake. My number one rationale for this was that many people would die - I had no idea how many and any estimate I would have given at the time was probably low by two orders of magnitude. But the second reason I had, and the one I emphasized in my letter because I thought it would have more traction, was that you don't hand the enemy a magnificent recruiting tool. The image of 'brave Sarah sitting there taking the abuse from those mad liberals' will be used over and over by this administration and its proxies: and do not doubt that it will be used to get out the Trumpist vote in November. They could not have written a better script.

I don't think that Wolf was wrong in anything she said, at least as far as I have read. I don't understand the eyeshadow reference - Meade's statement about a physical defect that SHS has is over my head - she looks like a normal specimen of humanity to me which is part of the problem: I prefer my monsters to look like monsters. I didn't take the reference to 'smoky eye' as being any different to comments about Trump's hair or, come to that, Melania Trump's general vacuous look ("I'm not really here") except in the company of Barack Obama at a funeral.

Edited to correct a stray apostrophe which some sort of Apple auto-correct placed in a fit of muddle headed mind farting.

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