Reviews

I’m Still Creeped Out by The Comedian

5/1/2018

Ever since that White House Correspondents dinner Saturday night, I have not trusted my negative reactions.

I wanted to make sure I did not have a male-double-standard reaction to a female comedian who talked dirty about the disturbed man in the White House.

She, after all, did not say anything that my wife and I have not shouted at the tube in the last two years.

But there is a huge difference between insults hurled in a darkened tv den….or incessant breaking-news yammering on cable news….or kvetching on my own little therapy web site…or even actual news reported by my friend Michael S. Schmidt and other stars at the New York Times and Washington Post….and a raunchy televised monologue in a huge room filled with DC types.

So despite judgments by my wife….and Masha Gessen in The New Yorker….that the speech was righteous and prophetic, I am reminded why the Times, my former employer, does not participate in the annual dinner.

The Times also does not let its staff vote for awards – sports, entertainment, anything – because, as I understand it, the Times’ job is to report news rather than make news with a quirky vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame or something else trivial.

The Times has been way ahead of the curve on ducking the dinner, which may have been a grand old Washington custom when (male) swamp-dwellers smoked cigars and chuckled at musty jokes about Franklin Pierce’s golf game, or whatever.

I know scholarships and awards are involved, but the dinner (without the pulchritude of the Oscar show) was mean. Then again, I didn’t think Steven Colbert’s 2006 riff on President George W. Bush was funny. (I don’t think Colbert is funny, or Bill Maher, and I thought Louis C.K. was rancid when I caught him on tv once or twice. I love Letterman and Chris Rock and Wanda Sykes and Tina Fey but there are too many comedians. I know this sounds stuffy.)

The point is, there is a disturbed man in the White House, courtesy of angry people with racial bias and rich guys and evangelicals and frauds like Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell. This is serious business. Hiring a comedian for shock value does not help.

You should hear the stuff my wife and I shout at Sarah Huckabee Sanders in our den, as she pours self-righteous contempt on journalism, and facts, and reality. She was sent by the chicken-heart President to take the insults Saturday, and she reacted with stoic dignity, for once.

If you ask me, we need to listen to dead-serious people like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, neither of whom has ever been described as a comedian.

The country needs Robert Mueller to do his job, and federal prosecutors, and lawyers, and journalists, and refreshing younger candidates, and journalists.

The dinner needs to evolve if not expire. No more comedians. No more yuks. This is serious business.

The correspondents should say: We are better than that.

John McDermott

5/1/2018 02:05:44 pm

I find Sanders' way of doing her job as appalling as anyone. She fits perfectly into the Trump White House Circus. But attacking her for her physical appearance and humiliating her in public like that was cruel and ought to have been out of bounds. She lies and obfuscates, but she didn't kill anybody. The comedian-and I've never heard of her before this-went too far.

Mendel

5/1/2018 02:06:45 pm

And the people said, amen.

John McDermott

5/1/2018 02:47:30 pm

By the way George, I pretty much share your take on contemporary comedians with the exception that I can tolerate Colbert in limited doses but I can't stand Letterman who I think is fundamentally mean. And how Louis CK ever got anywhere is a huge mystery to me. In any case, this as all too important to be turned into a joke. Maybe doing so gives us some comic relief, but I too am hoping that Robert Mueller is able to do his job without interference so we can have some clarity.

Brian Savin

5/1/2018 06:15:10 pm

You got a lot wrong, George, with respect. The "Rich Guys" are on the side of the comedian. They put her there. And, Americans who put their hopes in Trump aren't racists. They put HIM there. The poor may always be with us, but it is wrong for this country to have so many so very quickly. You should read some more to regain your proper bearings and understand why we are where we are in this country. Your former employer, and my own decades long resource for news, is not part of the solution.
Best
Brian

bruce

5/1/2018 09:17:37 pm

george,

computer virus for a few days so i'm just catching up.

i watched wolf's performance.

laughed like a few times, cringed a few times. felt sorry for sanders, but also thought she deserved it as well.

her performances in the so called press briefings is, to be polite, both awful and scornful.

i've enjoyed the evening at times over the years, but i think the nyt is right in not participating.

seems kind of incestuous to me.

seems like your neighbourhood friend is continuing his habit of throwing people under l'autobus.

and did you watch the bayern/real madrid match this afternoon?

bruce

PeterTx52

5/1/2018 09:25:13 pm

'here is a disturbed man in the White House, courtesy of angry people with racial bias and rich guys and evangelicals and frauds"
"You should hear the stuff my wife and I shout at Sarah Huckabee Sanders in our den, as she pours self-righteous contempt on journalism, and facts, and reality. "
wonder if you expressed this much outrage over Hllary Clinton's fraudulent Clinton Foundation and her keeping a secret email server to avoid complying with federal law.
you were a good journalist but now not so much

bruce

5/1/2018 09:44:03 pm

peter5x52,

i'm going to take a wild guess that you're a trump supporter.

your boy has gone where no man has gone before.

over 3000 documented lies so far, a crude, boorish man whose indecency is unknown in modern presidential history.

a man not known for anything but hate, fear mongering and cheating on his wives, mistresses, porn stars, playmates, in business, golf and whatever he touches or undertakes.

as for george, he can defend himself if he chooses.

however, i will say that he was writing about sports for much of his career and this blog started, i believe, after clinton left office.

trump is potus now. trying to throw whatever you want to throw at the clintons is irrelevant.

Joshua Rubin

5/2/2018 09:30:23 am

Alas, George, I think what you've called your "therapy blog" needs some therapy. I share your views about our intemperate president and administration, but that seems to be an increasingly difficult thing to talk about here as is the case everywhere, as the WHCA dinner demonstrates. .

The WHCA dinner is an unfortunate example of how futile it is at this time to pretend there is some common shared pursuit underneath the political divide and that there is room for humor to temporarily remind us of that. We have had two years of a sustained assault on the rule of law, the norms underlying our system of government, and endless ad hominem attacks. Wolf's unfortunate jokes pale against that backdrop but reveal, as you suggest, that the problem is with the forum in which they occurred. The press must hold itself to a higher standard AND it must not try to pretend we are in normal times. I am glad you pointed out that the NYT stays away from the event, as that seems the right approach.

As for this blog, it is your blog, your therapy, and your retirement. The rest of us are along for the ride and none of us will probably convince anyone else here of anything.

[Deep breath.]

At least the WC is coming up, though the US seems to have withdrawn from that diplomatic arena as well.

All the best,

Josh

George Vecsey

5/2/2018 10:13:30 am

Hi, kids, nice day today where I live. Thanks for the comments.
Note to all: I've been in the public eye a long time and have heard worse. Imus used to say it was "dog-track time" for me -- leave me at the dog track for social workers to scoop up. Maybe he still does.
I find it amusing that a wretched candidate (who would have made a better president) becomes the topic when the disturbed guy is criticized.
As for the Man of the People, are we forgetting that his boosters are named Adelson and Koch and Mercer, and he is still surrounded by gunnysack guys like Mnuchin and Wilbur?
http://fortune.com/2016/08/03/trump-billionaire-backers-list/
Have a fun day.
GV

Charles Vincent

5/2/2018 10:53:25 am

George, I totally disagree that we have too many comedians. Laughter is good for the soul; but a lot of what is passed off as "comedy" today is just as you depicted: mean-spirited, vulgar and just not funny. I did not watch the dinner but saw a bit of the clip of it and could not stand to watch much of her act, though I am unapologetically liberal. I did later read a few of her one-liners which I thought were hilarious, but in its entirety, I find it diffficult to defend

Brian Savin

5/3/2018 10:24:32 pm

George, there is no quality reporting threshold for what is published in our major media, including the NYT, if it is anti Trump. Fake news is an precisely accurate term. Every day. Today, it's false wiretapping allegations concerning Trump's attorney. CBS. NBC et al,. CNN, etc. All wrong. What will we see tomorrow? What is going on? It is not rational. It is not accurate. If you want the explanation, I've given it.

Brian Savin

5/4/2018 05:51:33 pm

Well, George, today's news includes this: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/judge-manafort-case-dont-unfettered-power/story?id=54936735

It's getting "real" in our justice system, and that's good.
Best
Brian

bruce

5/3/2018 10:48:27 pm

brian,

hopeless.

I guess it's true that trump could strut down wall street shoot and kill somebody, marry Ivanka and nuke germany and those inconvenient facts would be defended or attacked as fake news.

and the born again 'folks' would give him mulligan after mulligan until end times.

bruce

bruce

Brian Savin

5/4/2018 05:58:04 pm

Bruce, I want to know who you are. I authorize George to give you my personal information and I want yours.
Thanks,
Brian

John McDermott

5/4/2018 12:06:56 am

Even Sarah Sanders must have some moral limit and friends who will tell her when she’s wrong. And at what point will even Fox News have to distance itself and stop being a partner? Surely there must be some people at that enterprise with integrity. And instincts of self-preservation have to kick in at some point. “Hillary’s e-mail server” and “fake news” can’t be the responses to every criticism of Mr. Trump. The willing suspension of disbelief can be a wonderful thing when enjoying a work of fiction like a film or a novel. In everyday life, not so much. Sooner or later, reality bites.

bruce

5/4/2018 12:16:30 am

john,

I think sooner passed a long time ago.

bruce

bruce

5/5/2018 01:17:39 pm

brian,

as of now, I am incognito.

had a rather nasty storm yesterday with winds up to 80 mph (126 kph). a neighbour's tree was cracked in half and broke.

it started a chain reaction that ended up with the stack and metre at the side of my place being obliterated. pulled right off the wall outside my living room window.

i was inside and thought it was thunder before i felt the thud and saw sparks flying.

I have no internet, cable, phone or power.

I've spread my stuff out to my son, daughter and next door neighbour.

oddly enough, I bought my first cellphone the day before. had another for a day or two, but it was way more than I wanted.

all I want is a phone. don't need the other bells and whistles.

i'm at my computer guy's store. for some reason it's the only place I can get on wifi.

bruce