Posted on 02/26/2017 12:28:00 PM PST by Kaslin
To hear the amount of consternation coming from the cable news community you’d think that the United States was about to invade Canada. Shock waves are roiling the press over President Trump’s Twitter announcement saying that he would not be attending this year’s White House Correspondents Dinner. Could this be the end of Nerd Prom? (The Hill)
President Trump announced Saturday he will not be attending this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, which is usually attended by the president.
“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year. Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Oh, whatever shall we do? But all sarcasm aside, how is this in any way surprising? Not only is this informal evening of jokes and insider horsetrading completely outside of the Constitutional duties of the President, but it’s really of very little import to anyone outside of the Beltway. Those of us who have been around for a while are no doubt able to recall when this event received virtually zero attention even in the national press. It’s a somewhat more recent phenomenon to see clips from the various performances filling the airwaves for a few days after each event.
There’s also been a wave of criticism in recent years over the rather gaudy and frankly inappropriate nature of this meeting. It attracts a list of high profile celebrities who wind up sitting alongside both elected officials and media figures, all yukking it up while ignoring the irony of such a cozy gathering of members of the government and those whose job is ostensibly to hold them accountable. For the most part, even many of the jokes which are told fall completely flat with the average person who doesn’t spend their days and nights obsessing over what goes on inside the Beltway.
The real twist this year of course is the fact that the presumed guest of honor has a relationship with the press which is more akin to a series of drive-by shootings (from both sides) than any sort of friendly, good-natured rivalry. Since he’s not required to be there in the first place, what possible purpose would it serve for Donald Trump to show up and address this crowd? Previous presidents (including the last one who the media was absolutely in love with) would make a series of jokes about the press, but it was done in a friendly fashion. President Trump has not been in any mood to make jokes about the press because his battle with them has been all too serious. For their part, the media has been hounding him relentlessly since he first announced his plans to run for the White House. I would fully expect the jokes to be a lot more mean spirited this year.
The dinner will likely take place anyway. In fact, Trump’s absence may reinvigorate the affair. As John reported yesterday, some larger outlets had already announced plans to cancel their fabulous parties after the show. CNN wasn’t sure if they were even going to show up at all. Now, with the target of their ire no longer being present, they can feel free to pop the champagne corks and rub elbows in their usual chummy fashion. As for the President, I suspect he’ll find something else to do.
They hate Trump but at the same time they are mad that he isn't going attend their annual self-aggrandizement dinner. Their tantrums can be seen in who has cancelled their parties afterwards and who was thinking about not attending, like CNN, before Tump announced he wouldn't attend.
It's obvious these people have an inflated view of their own self-importance. It would end up being a "let's-see-if-we-can-dunk-Trump-in-the-tank-of-water-after-throwing-hardballs-at-him" carnival game.
He's right not to go and the media is wrong in whining about it. According to their WHCDA president, the dinner is about raising money for scholarships. Gee, who would have guessed. I'll bet few people knew that but the insiders.
I agree with the Prez not attending. Let these a$$holes pretend that they are something that they are not.
I have a dim recollection of Trump delivering a pretty harsh burn at one of these events, or something like it. It went like “I was meeting with the heads of the big media companies today, the real high-ups, the people who decide for the country what’s published”, and then asked everybody to give a big round of applause to Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Hillary Clinton, etc. Nobody but we deplorables were smiling.
Are you suggesting that they may “draft” Obola as a stand in?
“Piers Morgan suggested that the MSM was planning on not showing up in order to humiliate POTUS but Trump saw it coming and beat them to it.”
I love it, an empty room! If that happens, it’s the end of “the correspondent’s dinner for the next 8 years!
There is a difference between nerds and dorks. The media are dorks. Nerds actually know and can do things. Dorks are like nerds with no skill set.
Oh!!! No...I love this one...I’m a vegan, tho!...:))
Where do they get off calling themselves nerds? Nerds are generally those kids (and adults) who are too smart or cerebral to fit in with the crowds. They are the ones who become engineers, physicists and mathematicians. Journalists are the ones who, as students, go to the course catalog and find easy classes to take, and end up taking sociology and humanities. The ones that don't make it to being actual journalists become social workers. They are not nerds by any stretch of the imagination.
This nerd prom - even though the press isn’t smart enough to be nerds - needs to be shut down.
Please name any Republican President in the past 40, 60 or heck, 80 years who the press treated with a "friendly, good-natured rivalry".
Anyone one?
Bueller?
Bueller?
Ok now name any deamonRAT President in the same period who was treated with anything but love and occasionally reverence and worship by the media?
Still crickets?
The difference between those former Republican Presidents and Trump is that he shoots back.
I like his style, it’s goal oriented and he knows that no matter what he does, he’s going to be criticized by the MSM........So why play their silly games.......
To hear the amount of consternation coming from the cable news community you’d think that the United States was about to invade Canada.
That’s on Wednesday.
Well the one I saw was where Obama was riffing on Trump about bc at the correspondence dinner.
That’s the one. That was the turning point for POTUS.
I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of those formidable ladies, either!
I don’t know. Bush went to all of them when he was President and it really turned the press around to him and they started covering him accurately and fairly more and more every year....oh...right.
Prime Minister Harper skipped the Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner (Canada’s Nerd Prom) throughout his entire nine years in office. Even the media stopped pointing out his absence after a while.
There was a time, when the press was not so uniformly partisan and ideological, when the President could attend the dinner and take a sharp-tongued but not malicious ribbing. Now he would just expose himself to partisan propaganda devoid of real wit or humour. So let them have their little party. The boss has better things to do.
I like the President being at the dinner.
Fact: If POTUS Trump is not there...there is no WHCD!!! Oh...they may hold one for themselves...but, no one will be watching or, listening to any words these fools & buffoons utter!!! LMAO...while rolling on the floor!!!
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