Yesterday I briefly pondered writing an equally brief post about Sarah Huckabee Sanders' farewell party — or rather, a repugnant gathering to a fare-thee-well — at Washington's Rare Steakhouse. But it was too much. Too much after having read Michelle Goldberg in an awful mood; and writing, again, about the dreadful Donald J. Trump and downcast Democrats; and suffering through a piece about the fatally idealistic Progressive Change Campaign Committee. It was just too much.
Before recovering my senses, I got so far as reading a NY Times story on the appalling affair, at which dozens of White House reporters convened to toast a press secretary who had, for two years, lied to them, belittled them, and just plain disappeared before them. I would have thought Sanders' demeaning behavior toward these journalists would have called for a journalistic attendance of zero. But I should never underestimate the pitiable groveling of more than a few White House correspondents.
The party was hosted by Politico and Dailymail.com reporters, however many of the others knew they should not have been there. "Even for clubby Washington," wrote the Times' Shawn McCreesh, "it could be a bad look to clink glasses for a woman who rode shotgun for a president who refers to the media with a Stalinist epithet." Yes, however undignified, these enemies of the people attended, though with bowed heads. "You’d better not say I was here," said one reporter. "Me either," said his interlocutor.
Well, some attended with bowed heads. Others, such as W.'s press secretary, the shameless Ari Fleischer, said these gatherings are "what polite people do with each other. You can still clash. You can still differ. You can still be professionals who hold the administration to account and go to a goodbye party together." To my mind, that's selling out, just as attendance at the WH Correspondents Dinner is selling out.
Among the polite people Monday night were Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley and the WH director of strategic communications — strategic? — Mercedes Schlapp. Are reporters not free to quiz these folks during regular business hours? Are they available for accountability only when chilled Chardonnay and "bar nuts" are available? Does not getting chummy with politicos diminish — even subconsciously — the possibility of aggressive questioning?
Were I Politico's managing editor, I would instruct my reporters that they can have a job, or eat bar nuts with Hogan. But in the interest of detached reporting, they can't have both.