White House Correspondents Dinner
The annual spring rite that is known in these parts as the prom has come and gone. It reached new heights of giddiness--movie stars! movie stars!--but was so crowded that I didn't actually spot many of them. At one point, someone at my table (we were toward the rear of a huge ballroom) told me that she could see Tom Cruise's back. As for me, I didn't succeed in my one fangirl goal of the evening, which was to meet--or for that matter, even see--Glenn Close. Others did much better on that score.
But the President was very funny. (You can see the full video of his speech here. The evening was worth it for the Michael Steele bit alone.) And Wanda Sykes was as edgy as you would have expected--and hoped. You can see her speech here. It will be most interesting to see how well Rush Limbaugh can take the sort of stuff that he dishes out on a daily basis.
Finally, Happy Mother's Day to all of our mothers here in the Swamp. None other than Sarah Palin tweets a terrific idea for how to celebrate the day:
Gift advice: write your mom an original poem, I guarantee that's what she wants! And clean the house. With a smile:)
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Maybe should also advise mothers to give some advice to their daughters.
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Gosh who knows what Limbaugh's reaction will be? Another tough one-Will the sun rise in the east tomorrow?
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Happy Mother's Day to KT and the other Swampmoms ("Swampmoms"? Boy that doesn't sound good but my heart is in the right place" -
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Amy didn't create another stir by bringing Ozzy Osbourne as her date again...did she?
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Second-Paul. Happy Mother's Day to all the Swampmoms!
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Was that Amy Winehouse with MS? It was hard to tell because her face was flat down in her plate of food in the clip I saw. It could have been Courtney Love too. At least they had fun.
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PNNTO:
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hate spewage. no.
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Wow. A wonderful morning dose of humor. He panned everything the tired right has had to say.
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WAZZZUP Boenher!
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Loved it! -
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PNNTO:
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It's because last night the planet accidentally rolled completely over.
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Maybe it was Limbaugh stomping around. The dang thing now rises in the west... -
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This kind of thing creeps me out. The press shouldn't be this clubby with the people they cover. I guess that makes me a humorless scold of the left.
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That said, the Bohner quip was pretty hilarious. I've been wondering why that obvious fact isn't already a cliche about that guy, like Al Gore = fat or whatever. Maybe it's because no one has noticed him. -
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"give her Texas"
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Hah. -
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Ha fifty. I'll leave it to others stronger than I to find out.
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I thought Wanda's line about photographers always managing to catch BHO shirtless but never smoking was pretty perfect. -
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EE: Funny thing is, the way the dinner works now, media types go so gaga over the Hollywood celebs that they all but ignore their sources. I think, all in all, it's pretty harmless on the question of chumminess with power. One thing that was very unsettling to me, though, was all this excess when so many of us are losing our jobs. It has a sort of Last Days of Rome feel to it. But I did go, so who am I to cast the first bonbon?
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On that score, David Carr just tweeted the following: Journos whistle past the graveyard, drink in hand @ #nerdfest, but sill woke up to a world that seems happy to have us go away quietly.
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http://twitter.com/carr2n/status/1754828322 -
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My only words, 4 years cannot pass quickly enough. This is pure garbage, but typical for our times. Typical for the gutter trash that is now occupying the White House.
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Thank you Elvis for calling this for what it is, it not only "creeps me out", but I am truly appalled at the behavior demonstrated. Appalled at how the President of the United States and a First Lady believe that this is what they should be laughing at, especially while millions of Americans are out of work and struggling to put the next meal on the table.
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I do hope this gets lots of play on the media. Showing America just how our President and First Lady like to spend their time. Laughing at the jokes of a racist black woman. A vulgar and totally gutter-trash "Ho'" who thinks she is funny.
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Amazing.
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You truly cannot hide your true feelings or disdain for America with shows like this.
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Its time to wake up America. Time to see what this Presidency is all about. -
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Also, had almost forgotten my one real celeb sighting: Dana Delaney, no entourage, quietly slipped through the metal detectors right after I did. I was so struck by her beautiful dress that it took me a minute to recognize who was wearing it.
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Wont wonders never cease:
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A neo nazi racist lecturing about race. PNNTO, maybe the sun did rise in the west this morning.
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BTW, I loved every moment of Wanda's speech.
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Rusty:
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Loosen up, my man.
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Enjoy life, look at the flowers and the bees. Listen to the loon calling in the distance, amid stunning silence. Take in some blue sky. Watch eagles cross the sky over your head. Listen to a stream. Watch fish jump in the early morning sunlight as fog pours through a cut at the far side of the lake where the stream flows. Look at the still, glassy water as bright sparkles catch the slightest ripple. -
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Hell, I just won $54 at Snoqualmie last night. By no means a big deal, but I had a perfectly enjoyable night, rubbed elbows with lots of Americans of every stipe, and even better, came home with a little more money than I left with.
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Top that off with listinging to a President with a sense of humor, a wonderful skit by Wanda Sykes, morning sunshine, and a good hot cup of coffee, and I think:
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What could be better than that for small pleasures! -
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.............Typical for the gutter trash that is now occupying the White House.
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Did GW and Cheney visit the WH last night? -
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I think these dinners are great. It gives everyone a chance to say things in jest (but that are true). I too can't wait for these four years to pass. Then Obama can get down to the REALLY liberal stuff we've all been waiting for. No more middle of the road stuff. Pot in every chicken. That kind of stuff. Happy Mother's Day KT.
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Well, it is a benefit for journalism students and charitable giving. And really, I don't think it's all that awful that the focus is on the celebs. The actual government officials, except for POTUS and FLOTUS, are mainly guests of the networks and the splashy magazine people. And the actual government officials that attend, aren't really sources. They are the people about whom the sources leak.
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The actual WHPC, the *reporters* who inhabit the bowels of the briefing room on a daily basis, generally invite their spouse or another friend who isn't a WH person. The table is "bought" by the news agency. In that sea of people, there are just a few of them in attendance. So once per year they have a high-profile, highly popular social occasion, which takes in enough money to award scholarships to deserving students. That ain't so bad. -
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Being a creative genuis and Independent doesn't entail thinking like everyone else. Hollywood is full of people like that, that think outside the normal hoops.
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Give the useful idiots and political activists of the White House press corps credit for consistency, to wit: Selecting, during both Republican and Democrat adminstrations, a leftist "comedian" to entertain the identically like-minded audience of Obama worshippers. Shocking .... Not.
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James: Sounds like socialism to me. Charities are just groups looking for a handout so that they can hand out money to other people that didn't earn their money. It's a commie plot.
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J,LA hits a great point. only a tiny fraction of a tiny fraction of the people in the room are actual white house reporters. one year, when i was on the beat, bill clinton made a joke about "fargo" that was hilarious to anyone who had ridden lately in the press compartment of AF1 (the network cameramen there always commandeer the in-flight movie player, usually pick the most violent thing they can find to watch, and that year, were playing "fargo" over and over to the point where the rest of us were about to lose our minds.) anyway, there was only a smattering of laughter, and clinton said something to the effect of how he was just telling that joke to find out how many real white house reporters there were at the dinner.
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found it!
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It was in a riff about the newseum: There is also an absolutely amazing collection of historical artifacts: CSPAN's gavel-to-gavel etchings of the Constitutional Convention; CNN's very first Cross-Fire -- from the left Alexander Hamilton, from the right Aaron Burr, topic gun control. (Laughter.) There is an actual press corps travel manifest from Stage Coach One. Guess what -- the film they showed was Fargo. (Laughter.) The 30 people in the White House press corps are laughing at that. (Applause.)
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http://www.soundbiteinstitute.com/clinton-archive/whc-1997.html?height=500&width=800 -
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KT: That just gave me a great idea. Instead of taking the RWer's to the woodshed, can we take them to the woodchipper instead?
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