High-def even.
Posted on 07/18/2025 7:11:24 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
It may not be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, but when historians write the definitive story of the first half of the 21st century in the U.S., a single weekend in the spring of 2011 may well go down as the era's hinge point—a 48-hour period that set into motion a string of events still unraveling now, 14 years later.
That weekend, President Barack Obama authorized the mission to kill Osama bin Laden and kept it secret from the world as he delivered a cutting speech that brought down the house at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. What no one knew at the time was that Obama's remarks were laying the groundwork for the killing of the customs and traditions that underpinned the relationship between the American presidency and the press that covers it.
Now, almost a decade-and-a-half later, the glitzy tentpole event for the Washington media establishment is a shadow of its former self, boycotted and browbeaten by President Donald Trump and his supporters.
The long and irrevocable decline of the dinner and the norms that once defined the Beltway establishment—as well as the current political force ripping through it—were all planted that night, historians and others who spoke to Newsweek said, with Obama's lampooning of Trump to the laughter of a room full of tuxedo-clad D.C. power brokers and their guests.
Busy for a Saturday
April 30, 2011, was a warm spring day in Washington, and the White House was oddly abuzz for a weekend. As Obama met with his speechwriters to put the polish on his keynote for that evening's White House Correspondents' Association Dinner across town, a small cadre of his top national security advisers were huddled below the White House in the Situation Room,
(Excerpt) Read more at newsweek.com ...
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Who own Nesweek now? I notice they have some decent pieces now, that while still tilting to the left, not overtly like NYT or CNN. I also know at least one Editor-at-large is a conservative.
High-def even.
Basically Obama effed around that night at the correspondents dinner and found out . Now his name has been uttered in the same breath with “treason” . And ain’t it great that the demon party normalized prosecuting former presidents? …film at eleven…
I have that Frontline show recorded. I watch it again every now and then. It’s awesome. It’s the beginning of FAFO.
yes he is indeed. Especially that second part.
The press brought on their decline on their decline by DECADES of lying and distorted stories, not just one night. See Tagline.
All I see is a coffin.
I’m so glad you posted this retrospective on what most of us conservatives had been very aware of at the time.
The author tries to balance his tiresome lefty bias against Trump by criticizing Obama’s handling of Afghanistan, having nothing whatsoever to do with his main thesis—that the left and the media (but I repeat myself) are rightfully enraged that the scurrillous birther Trump eventually won the presidency in spite of Obie-Wan and other comedians attempting to humiliate Trump in front of their precious Nerd Prom.
Voters actually didn’t like the poliitics of destruction coming from the elites, he speculates, and it made the stylish and clever people lose, and that was a bad move. Who really cares about the People, the principles, the constitutional purpose of a free press—nah. Not when all the media’s gay-wannabes can land like hornets on a patriot they want everyone to loathe as much as they do.
This is as close as he ever came. Even the guy he poked fun at laughed:
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