Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / White House Correspondents Dinner: Sleepy Don Isn’t Going to Like This

White House Correspondents Dinner: Sleepy Don Isn’t Going to Like This

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Don’t hold back, Joe. Tell us what you really think!

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This one has some of the above, plus “stormy weather” and more jabs at the former guy.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

60Comments

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    No fucks left to give, I think.  Joe is leaving it all on the field, as they say.

    @NotMax:  I’ve never heard of the Colin guy, so I don’t plan to watch.  Unless some really great clip from him changes my mind.

  8. 8.

    Jackie

    Thanks, WaterGirl! I’m watching and enjoying watching Biden aiming shots directly to TIFG!

  12. 12.

    Steeplejack

    @WaterGirl:

    Colin Jost is co-host of “Weekend Update” on Saturday Night Live and also the husband of Scarlett Johansson. (She’s an actress, if you haven’t heard of her either. 😹)

  13. 13.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: Colin Jost is one of the anchors on Saturday Night Live’s news desk.

    I wouldn’t say he’s particularly funny in that role — that’s on the SNL writers though — but he is relaxed and has a certain charm in those segments. Which he did not exhibit tonight.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    I watched it on C-Span. Biden was good, and his heart-felt ask for the press to take their job seriously and leave the horse-race stuff behind this time was important.

    Jost’s story about his grandpa was touching and a good endorsement. Maybe it will sway some fence-sitters.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    mrmoshpotato

    Paraphrasing Colin Jost: Every courtroom sketch of the orange shitstain looks like the Grinch had sex with the Lorax.

  17. 17.

    Mike in NC

    Obama once made a couple of innocuous jokes about Fat Bastard at the dinner and here we are still paying the price all these years later.

  19. 19.

    Another Scott

    @Mike in NC: My theory, and it’s all mine, is that TIFG ran to punish JEB for not giving him the casino license he wanted.  He announced a day after JEB did.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Ohio Mom

    @Mike in NC: That also crossed my mind. Trump was in the audience that night and I remember the camera cutting to him and he was fuming. He certainly wasn’t there tonight, a small improvement I guess.

    I’ve always wondered what he was doing there, he wasn’t a member of the press.

  22. 22.

    Chet Murthy

    @Ohio Mom: I have no actual idea, but maybe he was there b/c he was still laboring under the delusion that he could be accepted as one among The Great And The Good.  I mean, there’s that story of him turning up for that charity gala, sitting at the head table, when he’d donated bupkis, zilch, and was taking the seat of an actual high-rollerr donor.  Maybe he was still laboring under the delusion that high society would accept him ?  Of course, at this point he knows that the only high society that’ll accept him is those for whom “behind every great fortune is a great crime” is a badge of honor, but back then, maybe he still thought he could be accepted ?

    Idunno.

  24. 24.

    FastEdD

    I found myself listening to Colin Jost and repeating to myself, “That’s not funny.” One joke I remember was along the lines of, “If you’re home watching this on CSPAN on a Saturday night, what’s the matter with you?” Not even anything to do with politics, but you’re going to insult all your viewers? I liked the jabs at TFG from The Current Guy, but giving awards to the NYT, yuck. I guess I shouldn’t have been watching CSPAN on a Saturday night. I learned my lesson, Colin.

  25. 25.

    Spanky

    @Chet Murthy:

    Trump, the “Celebrity Apprentice” star, was a natural for the dinner: wildly popular, gregarious, huge. He came at the invitation of writer Lally Weymouth. The daughter of The Washington Post’s legendary Katharine Graham and mother of ­then-publisher Katharine Weymouth co-hosted the Washington Post-Newsweek reception for years and always invited her famous New York and D.C. friends as guests of the newspaper.

    …

    Trump arrived with his wife, Melania, at his side. He was ­gracious and engaging “as he greeted, charmed and flattered his way through the endless security line,” recalled Marcus Brauchli, The Post’s executive editor at the time. Reporters asked Trump whether he expected any jokes to come his way. Sure, he told them: “I’m fine with this stuff.”

    …

    The next morning, the newspapers had a different version that boiled down to “Trump humiliated.” Trump says he was baffled by the headlines, because that wasn’t his take on the night. “I didn’t know that I’d be virtually the sole focus, and I guess when you’re leading in most of the polls, that tends to happen,” he told “Fox & Friends” the next morning. “I thought Seth Meyers, frankly, his delivery was not good — he’s a stutterer and he really was having a hard time.”

    In retrospect, Trump broke the classic rule of political humor that says that the only response to a joke about you is to laugh harder than anyone else in the room. Whatever he was thinking, Trump looked unhappy and gave pundits a reason to pounce.

    — WaPo article by Roxanne Roberts, 4/28/2016
    So Trump was a guest of the Washington Post.

  26. 26.

    Chet Murthy

    @FastEdD: I didn’t watch it; I’m a little sad you (and apparently others) found him unfunny.  He and Che are quite funny on SNL, so I’d have hoped he’d be funny solo.  but maybe not.  Ah, well.

  28. 28.

    Chet Murthy

    @Spanky: “leading in most of the polls” ?  This was in 2012, right?  He wasn’t running back then — where he does get that from?  Oh right, pulled outta his butt.

  29. 29.

    AlaskaReader

    What’s the one word that describes a construction put in place to enforce both,

    uniform resistance to diversity and individuality,

    …and at the same time to effectuate there be no deviation from groupthink ?

  30. 30.

    frosty

    @NotMax: ​ Yeah, I watched his whole bit and I laughed a lot, but it was kind of lame. The pauses? They work on Weekend Update but not so much here. The jokes and punchlines weren’t killer, either.

    I guess we’re spoiled by Colbert.

  33. 33.

    Spanky

    @Chet Murthy:

    One of the paragraphs hiding in one of those ellipses:

    In 2011, however, Trump had become more than a television star. He was one of the leaders of the birther movement, a loud campaign that insisted that Obama had not been born in the United States and was not eligible for the presidency. Although the claim was discredited, Trump (publicly toying with a presidential campaign) remained unconvinced of the president’s citizenship. The story was everywhere; Hawaii released Obama’s original long-form birth certificate just days before the April 30 dinner.

    The whole article can be found here.

  34. 34.

    Chet Murthy

    @frosty: I thought Myers did an excellent job his year, and Michelle Wolf knocked that sucker outta the park.  And since we’re talking about comedy, here’s Hasan Minhaj (I don’t remember if his outing at the WHCD was good or not, but this sure is): https://youtu.be/RjWWTTMj0xw?t=80

  35. 35.

    Geoduck

    Non-politics: Every year my town holds a “Procession of the Species” parade, where people march and dance with animal props or costumes they’ve made. No commercials or powered vehicles allowed. COVID killed it for a few years, but it came back. Here’s a video of some of the highlights (not shot by me.)

  37. 37.

    Chet Murthy

    @Geoduck: That is -so- great!  I bet the kids just love it!  I mean, and the adults too, but especially the little kids!

    ETA: I loved the axolotl!

  40. 40.

    Brachiator

    @Chet Murthy:

    I thought Myers did an excellent job his year, and Michelle Wolf knocked that sucker outta the park.

    Totally agree with you on this. I will probably get around to watching the video because I think that Colin can be very funny.

    I guess this dinner has a charitable purpose, but I don’t think that politicians and reporters should be buddies or hang out with each other.

  41. 41.

    Chet Murthy

    @Brachiator:

    I don’t think that politicians and reporters should be buddies or hang out with each other.

    Can only agree 100%.  Elites gonna elite tho.

  42. 42.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @WaterGirl: Colin Jost has been on Weekend Update on SNL for several years now, I think.  Also IIRC, he is married to Scarlett Johansen

    ETA: Or what Steeplejack said at #12 with correct spelling and much sooner.

  46. 46.

    Gretchen

    I think Colin Jost is very funny on SNL. He wasn’t as funny tonight, but his story about his grandfather, a Staten Island Irish firefighter who voted for Biden because he’s a decent man, brought me to tears.

  49. 49.

    Chet Murthy

    @opiejeanne:

    One year a bunch of little kids pushed a gigantic brown ball in the parade, dressed as dung beetles.

    See now, that would be (1) incredibly fun, (2) really appeal to kids, b/c wickedly clever and kinda transgressive, and (3) wow, so educational!  To even know what dung beetles are, how their lives work etc, at such a young age!  So great!

  53. 53.

    opiejeanne

    @opiejeanne: that album contains a few other shots of the parade, including a couple in body paint. The best naked bicycle rides were on a tandem, painted to look like the original Popeye and Olive Oyl. I don’t think I have a photo of them.

  54. 54.

    Citizen Alan

    @Spanky:  wow. I know it was 2012 when Obama humiliated him. But for him to go in 2016 as a guest of the Washington Post while a GOP candidate?!? What a fucking disgrace to the idea of respectable journalism!

  55. 55.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Citizen Alan: ​
    No, that was 2011 that he was a guest of the WaPo, and when Obama made fun of him.​
     

    ETA: And was doing well in the GOP primary polls, despite not being a candidate. (I remember seeing the polls at the time, and being puzzled about why he was there at all.)

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