Monday, April 30, 2018

Our Broken Media, WHCD Edition


Yesterday, we noted some of the righteous barbs comedian Michelle Wolf stuck into the inflated egos and stuffed shirts at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, including the one about the media in the room helping to create malignant existential threat Donald "Rump" Trump.  As many have noted, when you hire a comedian to do a roast, that's what you should expect -- unless you're clueless administration stenographers. (The "democracy dies in darkness" WaPo even gave Hugh f*cking Hewitt valuable space on its op/ ed page to lament Wolf's roast -- no link!)

But the barb causing many of our self- absorbed defenders of freedom to desperately clutch their pearls was this line about White House Spokesliar Sarah "Huckster" Sanders:
“I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts, and then she uses the ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”
The media herd sprung into action with outrage about a physical appearance slight that... wasn't. Here's just one of the herd in clueless solidarity with Sanders:

To which Michelle Wolf responded:
Others have noted the hypocrisy of the Rump- electing and enabling media in all this:








That would be this Rump speech.

And finally, after the head weasel of the White House Correspondents' Association apologized for Wolf's roast:

More reactions to the WHCA statement from real live journalists here.

While a budding autocrat spews lies and insults and threatens the rule of law every single day, this self- referencing chickenshit non- story is dominating the news for these self- involved jackasses? These are the brave hearts and truth tellers that are going to save our democracy?

BONUSMolly Roberts gets it --
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.

BONUS IISo does BooMan.

2 comments:

donnah said...

Michelle Wolf simply turned the mirror back onto the Republicans and correspondents who have done everything in their power to normalize this nightmare of a presidency. She reflected directly the meanness, pettiness, acrimony and lies and if it seemed cruel and harsh to them, then perhaps they need to evaluate their own behavior and the actions of the party.

The whining and wailing is unbecoming. They should STFU and try to act like professionals,

W. Hackwhacker said...

donnah - she did what they asked her to do, and what other comedians have done before her: a roast. They hired her, in their own words, as a "speaking truth to power" talent. The media's incestuous relationship with the Rump Regime is on full display in the over-the-top and unwarranted blowback from her performance. As bad as we've become, I still don't think we deserve these media Quislings.