The Editorial Board | The Wall
Street Journal
Comedian Michelle Wolf performs at the
White House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, April 28, 2018.
Photo:
aaron p. bernstein/Reuters
The anti-Trump comic gave the media what she thought they wanted.
The Beltway media brigades held their annual night of industry awards and
partying on Saturday, but this year’s event is notable for triggering some
buyer’s remorse.
The White House Correspondents’
Association typically hires a comedian as entertainment. This year it was
Michelle Wolf, formerly of Comedy Central. Ms. Wolf unleashed such a torrent
of nasty gibes and vulgar jokes about Republicans and Donald Trump that even
the anti-Republican, anti-Trump crowd had second thoughts.
Peter Funt describes nearby some of the unfunny bits, and Ms. Wolf
was especially vicious to White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders,
who was seated on the dais. In an act of remarkable discipline, Ms. Sanders
listened in stoic silence without walking out.
The performance had media elites
professing shock at Ms. Wolf’s excesses. “Media hands Trump big,
embarrassing win,” wrote Mike Allen, whose morning newsletter broadcasts the
conventional Washington wisdom.
There were many similar sentiments on Twitter .
Yet what did they expect? Michelle
Wolf merely gave them what she no doubt assumed, with ample reason, the
correspondents wanted. She comes from a network and recent style of comedy that
specialize in attacking the politics and values of half the country.
Much—not all—of the press corps has
responded to Donald Trump’s surprising victory not by trying to understand it,
much less report on it with any balance. Instead they have treated it like
an alien invasion that must be repelled, and anyone associated with it as
deserving disdain, ridicule or worse.
Any reporter who doesn’t follow this herd
of contempt is expelled from polite media company. Ms. Wolf was merely putting
a cruder face on what she reads every day.
All of which plays into the hands of
Mr. Trump, who didn’t attend the event but did indulge in some Twitter gloating
afterward. On a trip to Michigan on Saturday night, Mr. Trump also rolled out
his typical and nasty attack lines about the press. If reporters want to
know why millions of Americans believe him, look in the mirror of Saturday
night.
___________________________
A Vicious Wolf Gives Trump the Last Laugh
By Peter Funt | The Wall Street
Journal
Comedian Michelle Wolf at the White
House Correspondents' Association dinner in Washington, April 28.
Photo: aaron p. bernstein/Reuters
‘She had some great one-liners,’ Douglas Brinkley said on CNN. He changed his mind.
No matter how you feel about Donald Trump or the Washington-based journalists
who cover him, you should be angered by what was offered Saturday as
entertainment at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
Michelle Wolf, recently of Comedy
Central and soon to have her own series on Netflix , was foul-mouthed about Mr. Trump and
downright cruel about members of his administration, several of whom were in
the room. Worse, though it proved to be beside the point, she wasn’t funny.
“Trump is so broke,” she quipped,
that “Southwest used him as one of their engines.”
She called Vice President Mike Pence
a “weirdo”: “He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don’t knock it
till you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you got to
get that baby out of there.”
Ms. Wolf’s material—most of which
was laced with too much profanity to print here—wasn’t about the First
Amendment, as some suggested. Nor was it about the #MeToo movement, which she
attempted at one point to hide behind. It was simply a Saturday Night
Massacre of dignity and common sense.
It helped prove two unfortunate
truths: First, the notion of having working
journalists dress up for “nerd prom,” as they call it, and fawn over celebrity
guests while listening to a hired comic roast the officials they cover each day
was never a good idea. Now, in the freewheeling age of social media, it’s
completely bankrupt.
Second, Mr. Trump was right to
skip the event. No reasonable person, even among his harshest critics, would
have expected him to sit through this.
On Twitter
the next morning, Mr. Trump called it a “big, boring bust.” He was too
kind. The event has given Mr. Trump’s supporters more ammunition to use in what
is essentially an unreasonable attack on “fake news” and “mainstream media.”
Many pundits were as conflicted
about Ms. Wolf’s act as they are about how to cover the Trump administration,
as CNN’s instant analysis following the event proved. Historian Douglas
Brinkley immediately said, “She had some great one-liners.”
About 20 minutes later, he retreated
to: “She has the right to say what she did.” After an hour’s reflection, Mr.
Brinkley concluded: “The dinner is broken. I think it needs to be reimagined
next year.”
Through this misguided event, the
Correspondents’ Association has given Donald Trump what he wants most: the last
laugh.
Mr. Funt is a writer and host of
“Candid Camera.”
