On Trump's WHCD no-show

Proof that there's some good in all of us: Hitler loved dogs, and Trump hates the White House Correspondents' Dinner.

It's creepy to endorse a Trumpian decision, although my creepiness is mitigated by the doubtless fact that Trump based his no-show decision on his hide's exceptional thinness. He's a bullying coward, eager to trash the press at cheering Bund gatherings such as CPAC, but terrified by unintimidated journalists and comedic critics. There are no political kitchens whose heat he can stand, and so he avoids them.

That said, with or without Trump the WHCD has become a national obscenity. All-day C-Span coverage of who's traipsing Washington and Hollywood's insiders' red carpet is a dispiriting adventure in egocentrism. To "be seen" is the event's fundamental objective; to be uninvited is a professional disgrace. Or so goes the insiders' self-assessments.

To willing outsiders, the annual event's aristocratic nature (scarcely a feature of yeomanlike journalism) has become so grotesque, ridicule is all that's left. As the Washington post reports, "Comedian Samantha Bee announced in January that she was planning an alternative event on the same night for 'journalists and non-irritating celebrities from around the world.' (Its tentative name: 'Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.)"

Nonetheless, the White House Correspondents’ Association is determined to maintain the fallacy that the yearly, preening penguin-suit gathering is a noble occasion: "[The dinner] has been and will continue to be a celebration of the First Amendment," wrote the WHCA's president in response to Trump's declared absence. Then so were the Dean Martin roasts.

From 2012, here's what Andrew Sullivan had to say about his attendance at the, ahem, First Amendment's celebration: "It was a really magical evening…. I bumped into many people – we were next to John Legend and his fiancee and the British ambassador and his wife at dinner – and did have a brief and warm chat with the president…. George Clooney came up to say hi. Not since Jon Hamm came out as a Dish reader at the White House Correspondents' Dinner did such a shiver go up my leg."

I don't mean to pick on Sullivan. His reflections above, though, represent the self-promotional essence of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. It possesses virtually no other reason for being. It has become a national obscenity.

 

Comments

[David & Son of Duff]

Brace up, Mr. Carpenter, I have shockin' news - I agree with you! Here is part of what I wrote over at my place this morning:

"I never thought much of all that 'palsy-walsy' stuff between Presidents and scribblers, it gave the latter a totally false sense of their own importance. Dandruff-ridden, smelly socks, waste-tip scavengers is what they are, or at least, it's what they should be!"

[Anne J]

For once, Queen Donald of Drama did something I agree with even if for completely different reasons. I'm sure he never forgot that after months of relentlessly bullying the president over his birth certificate, he nearly blew a gasket sitting there while the president gave him a light hearted ribbing on stage in front of the wealthy elitists of the political, media, and entertainment classes. Killing bin Laden the next day was probably another blow to the orange dickhead's ego as well. He knew damn good and well who was the bigger man in that battle, and it sure as hell wasn't him.

That being said, I agree with his decision because no matter who the president is, I find the event unseemly, undermining the necessity for an independent press to report accurately and objectively on the powers that be in Washington. I remember years ago after the media elite helped sell the horrific, unnecessary tragedy of the Iraq war, Bush showing a video of himself looking around the oval office for the WMD's while the rich and powerful laughed. How many of them made money off the slaughter of poor people's children in that middle Eastern meat grinder? I remember a picture of David Gregory of "Meet the Press" infamy dancing on stage with Karl Rove. To me, that was the perfect image of who the media was really working for, and it sure wasn't We, the People. Now they have the nerve to wonder why so many people don't trust them.

[Denise Black]

I just remember Guliani's face when Hillary torched him at that last one. It made me really uncomfortable and thenI think he went balls to the wall to get her after that.

[Peter G]

What's with Republicans and their leg shivers? Is this a physiological disorder?

The WHCD is basically an annual event to remind politicians and journalists of the brown nosed variety to remind each other of their co-dependency. It serves that purpose if no other. Trump's absence does little to alter this but if they did not want anyone to notice an empty suit would serve as replacement.

Personally though I wonder how many people are going to die that night. It is historically the event that was concurrent with the military operations that killed Bin Laden. And the event where Obama mocked Trump for the dIfficult decisions his reality show required. What ill
conceived idiocy will take place to show us all I could only speculate.

[Anne J]

They also love to put down the celebrity loving left, but it's the Republican party that elects them to high office. I swear here in California, Governor Arnold was their choice because they really thought he was the Terminator.

[Mary Lynne Foster]

Well, why would he want to revisit the occasion of his great humiliation! The greatest!! Big League!!! Yuge, believe me!! The most humiliation ever!!!!

But seriously, if it's good for nothing else, at least the Whpc dinner gave us that one bright moment to look back on.