Obama Drops the Mic at the Correspondents Dinner
One thing Obama could do when he is out of office is go on tour — he’s hilarious: “There’s one area where Donald’s experience could be invaluable, and that’s closing Guantanamo. Because Trump knows a thing or two about running waterfront properties into the ground.” The Shade is fierce with this one.
This is President Obama’s entire speech at the WH Correspondents’ Dinner, approx. 33 minutes and worth every one of them.
Tags: Barack Obama, Shade, White House Correspondents Dinner
Outstanding material–spot-on delivery. The man has talent.
I sure wish he would lay into the obstructionism by the R’s much, much more than he does. He’s got the Bully Pulpit. Lay into them by name and lay out to the American people exactly what they are doing. Talking in vague terms about how “congress” is not acting on our problems feeds into the whole meme that the media pushes about how “both sides” are the problem.
Then again, when the chair of the DNC wants to weaken regulation on payday lenders, and, takes money from them, WTF?
Bill Maher’s guest, Thomas Frank, author of “Listen, Liberal, or Whatever Happened to the Party of the People” explained it. The Democratic Party made a conscious decision to become the party of the white collar class as the DLC took over the party and pushed Bill Clinton into the White House.
I also enjoyed Larry’s bit. He got FAR too real for some of the big networks, but those morons deserve it.
As funny as Obama is, and he’s very funny, the whole Corespondents Dinner has jumped the shark. I say that because of the hosts, not the presidents. They typically have a guy who already has his own TV show come and insult people at their own dinner and most of the jokes aren’t funny. A comedian trying too hard to be “cutting edge” is rarely funny. Watching an audience not laugh is worse than watching reality TV, and I hate reality TV. So I would say keep the thing, but get rid of the hosts, at least the kind they’ve been having.
A agree, it was a little cringe-inducing… but in Larry’s defense, Wolf Blitzer is horrible.
“I sure wish he would lay into the obstructionism by the R’s much, much more than he does. He’s got the Bully Pulpit. Lay into them by name and lay out to the American people exactly what they are doing. Talking in vague terms about how “congress” is not acting on our problems feeds into the whole meme that the media pushes about how “both sides” are the problem.”
I agree wholeheartedly with all of that. My big gripe with Obama is that he is all too willing to feed that narrative. Although lately I have some hope that he is coming around. Perhaps Trump is forcing his hand?
They don’t call the Correspondents’ Dinner the NerdProm for nothing.
I read this year that the organization that they are fundraising for doesn’t even provide the kind of scholarships that this event is supposed to support. While I enjoyed Obama’s turn at the mic for these (and I think he treats these right the right amount of cynicism), the display of the connection between the press, politicians and Hollywood is pretty cringe-inducing.
lighten up, cassandra. it doesn’t have to be all hate all the time from any of the sides. people can disagree, stand firm in their values and still be civilized. you’re right about obama, the coolest, classiest president . . . ever?
Awesome — another anonymous commenter in need of reading comprehension skills.
🙄
what did you actually mean?
cassandra, for clarification: i meant to send that post as ex-anonymous. i used the wrong name. i was on here for a while as anonymous; now i have a new name. i realize you don’t care, but now i feel better. anyway, what did you mean, then, by “cringe-inducing?” i see now that you didn’t actually mention the opposing political party or philosophies opposed to your view of liberalism. the non-politician side you were referring to was the media, but i suspect your cringing comes from the fact that you don’t agree with how they cover things and therefore there can be nothing to joke about. all must be adversarial. my comment about civility between sides still stands. as for “lightening up,” that applies to a lot of things you post, not just this one.
First, commentary on my “lightening up” isn’t interesting so you can stop providing direction on my posts right now.
Second, you can tell by the construction of my sentence what I mean:
“the display of the connection between the press, politicians and Hollywood is pretty cringe-inducing.”
This pretty clear, frankly, and pretty clear that it doesn’t refer anyone writing stuff I don’t agree with.
cassandra, i feel free to say pretty much what i want about your posts, as long as i’m no no more insulting than almost everybody else is on this site (not that that’s a bad thing). i find your lack of humor quite interesting.
if you have no problem with what they write, why are you cringing at the mingling at this event. sounds like you think it will influence (and has influenced) the media coverage in a way you don’t like. the light approach would be to say having a little fun together does not doom anybody to behave any particular way. there are plenty of real reasons for inadequate media coverage. but i admit i have now taken this past the point of interest.
Of course you can say want, you just have to deal with the fact that you aren’t contributing anything worth your typing it. Like this silly bit of mansplaining:
Go back to delawarepolitics where this kind of thing is AOK.
cassandra, how on earth could anybody but a blind zealot call that mansplaining? it’s the very definition of using the term to mean anything a man says that a woman disagrees with. i never go to delaware politics because those people aren’t interesting. there is more than one kind of liberal. now let’s all laugh at carly falling off the stage.
@ex-a “cassandra, how on earth could anybody but a blind zealot call that mansplaining?”
“it’s the very definition of using the term to mean anything a man says that a woman disagrees with.”
Sounds like mansplaining about mansplaining…
^^^Exactly.
ex-anon, stop policing my tone and what you want the basis of my comments to be, and police your own. You clearly have plenty of work to do in that arena before you can even think about policing anyone else.
so, no discussions about tone here? tone is part of the meaning of anything you say, just not necessarily the most obvious part. we’re never supposed to look for implications of what people say? for what their motivations might be, in order to put the statement in a context? that’s the kind of shallow reading i would expect from conservatives, who can rarely see past the surface of anything. and isn’t the term “tone policing” kind of a cliche by now even in the hothouse world of far-left websites?
questions, i have questions.
by the way, i wasn’t referring to delaware liberal when i said far-left websites. more like salon.
And you are still having reading comprehension issues.
And this is the definition of tone from Mirriam Websters that I am using here:
“style or manner of expression in speaking or writing “.
Motivation and implication was not what you were policing here. It was my tone. And never make the mistake of thinking I am not capable of using the language.
So take your questions to people who aren’t aquainted with the dictionary and who may find your inept attempts to police their tone somehow useful. It isn’t here. Come back when you are ready for the grownup table.
tone: “the way an author expresses his attitude through his writing.” that’s the sense in which i’m using it. “attitude” would include motivation, implication. it’s clear that’s what you mean by “tone policing” despite the definition you carefully plucked from your dictionary.
You have no business policing my attitude, either. No Business. People who come here to police attitude and tone are people who have nothing else to contribute. Which means you are STILL wasting everyone’s time. Get over yourself here — the only person you have any entitlements to manage here is you and you are failing pretty spectacularly on that.
Yeah, you’ve called out my “tone” before, and it’s interesting who you repeatedly select to do that to. At some point, almost every single commenter could be called out for their “tone”, but you don’t call out every single commenter. Why is that?
I have bad tone this morning
^^^Hey, ex-anon, this person is looking for the Tone Police!
i would say that detecting tone is important at least partly because it can suggest when a statement is based more on feeling — anger, often — than reason. that doesn’t help solve problems that might be very real. i don’t think you are particularly egregious in this, but sometimes i see it. this has become tiresome.
Selectively tiresome.
Selectively tiresome and completely wrong.