Sunday Open Thread [5.4.14]
The is is the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner edition.
First up, the President’s highlight reel via NBC:
The Boehner dig is awfully good.
Then there’s the highlight reel of Kevin McHale (I have no idea who he even is):
Last, this hilarious piece with Joe Biden and Julia Louis-Dreyfus:
As funny as some of this stuff is, this is still a reminder of a press corps that is too cozy with the people they cover — right?
What interests you today?
“This is a classic case of the bubble world and the unselfawareness of spending however millions of dollars over a number of days to celebrate ourselves and again I ask, why?”—— New York Times Magazine National Correspondent Mark Leibovich,
I think it’s only fair to give credit where it’s due. FBH is correct. The annual circle jerk where “journo-spokespeople” get to french kiss the assholes of the government elites is everything that’s wrong with the press in this country.
I just finished Marion Elizabeth Rodgers’ biography of HL Mencken. All I can think about is how disgusted he’d be at all this. Upton Sinclair as well. The current state of the Fourth Estate is shambolic and it doesn’t help to chuckle at how great Obama can deliver a punchline. “Orange is the new black. Oh, yuk-yuk, that’s a great one, Mr President!”
Reporters are not suppose to be at black tie dinners unless they’re crashed the party. Every time I see David Gregory or Chuck Todd I feel the need to take a huge shit and then take a shower.
Taibbi, Greenwald, the people at VICE… some are trying. But nothing beats a few whiskey sours, a gratis steak and the chance to bag that big interview with Mitch McConnell. This is a shameful event.