This: “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.” is not, in any way, shape or form, a joke about someone's "looks." — Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) April …
Open Thread: Yes, Kill the NerdPromPost + Comments (156)
Create one night a year where all the people who control the direction and narrative of society gather in opulence. On the one condition they have to listen to a third party.
Then get super mad when the person given that platform doesn't 'play the room.'
— Actually Krassenstein's Monster ?? (@Zeddary) April 29, 2018
James Poniewozik, NYTImes media critic:
One of Michelle Wolf’s first jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner involved a certain vulgarity that rode into widespread public use aboard Donald Trump’s “Access Hollywood” bus. To this crowd, it was apparently still a bit shocking. “You should have done more research before you got me to do this,” she said.
It was funny because it was true. The association invited Ms. Wolf, a political comedian, to its annual shindig Saturday night. She performed a political comedy routine. It was scathing, confrontational and impolite.
It was, in other words, about what you’d expect from a correspondent who once called President Trump “a racist fake gynecologist” on “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah,” an American news-comedy program that I suspect even the busy members of the W.H.C.A. have caught once or twice…
Was Ms. Wolf’s set vicious? Absolutely… But was it gratuitous? Not at all. It drove mercilessly toward its themes: that this administration lies; that its female members are covering for a sexist president; and that journalists have enabled it all with breathless coverage…
As for political balance, it should be noted that the W.H.C.A. invited America’s premiere conservative insult comic, and he chose to do a rally in Michigan instead. Mr. Trump knows the political value of a Don Rickles zinger. He intuits that audiences grant comedians a leeway they don’t to the stuffier professions.
Comedians are powerful — and sometimes more trusted and respected than journalists, as “The Daily Show” and company have shown — because they can say uncomfortable things flat-out, ditch the euphemisms, call a “falsehood” a lie. Comedy isn’t reporting, but it is testimony. (Ms. Wolf ended her own routine with a straight line: “Flint still doesn’t have clean water.”)
The irony of the association’s disavowing Ms. Wolf is that her routine, whether you agree with it or not, was ultimately about defending the mission of the White House press: sticking up for the truth. Michelle Wolf had the W.H.C.A.’s back Saturday night, even if it didn’t have hers the day after.
weekend really highlighted huge disconnect between Dems/liberals and DC press: Dems/libs have grave concerns whether US democracy survives under Trump. DC press sees it as heckuva fun story to cover
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) April 29, 2018
“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.” https://t.co/TWFO7odI8g
— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) April 29, 2018
My problem with last night’s dinner is not that we had a comedian who told some nasty jokes. It’s that we did not really address the nearly constant attacks on the press from the president. The dinner should change with the times so we send a strong message to the world. #WHCD
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) April 29, 2018
Let me clue you into something, Washington press corps. Because you may cover politics, but you have no political sense of self. The people who support what you do are outraged by @PressSec's normal behavior. The people who support @PressSec's normal behavior are outraged by you.
— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) April 29, 2018
This Michelle Wolf/Sarah Sanders thing reminds me of when Obama said 'you can't put lipstick on a pig" and conservatives swore he was calling Sarah Palin a pig rather than mocking McCain's desperate decision to choose her for VP.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) April 30, 2018
The most upsetting thing Michelle Wolf said last night was the reminder that Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water.
Imagine if the DC press corps & political chattering class had spent today performatively upset about *that* https://t.co/YiPOykpyLG
— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) April 30, 2018