A televised faux pageant of hype and pomposity
The Degraded Correspondents' Dinner
Robert W. Merry | April 30, 2013, The National Inerest
On the list of the many factors contributing to official Washington’s dysfunction these days, no one would put the degradation of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner near the top. But, as a reflection of what’s wrong with Washington, it deserves serious attention. I speak as a journalist who attended his first White House Correspondents' Dinner in 1975. That’s thirty-eight years ago, but who’s counting? Neither am I counting how many I’ve attended, but I think it’s probably thirty-four.
It was exciting back in 1975, at least for me, though there was only one Hollywood type in attendance. That was Danny Thomas, the actor and television personality, who provided the talent for the evening. He bombed. But it wasn’t important because the dinner had nothing to do with Hollywood. The next year Chevy Chase did the honors. He climbed atop a ladder and promptly fell off, landing on the floor in a heap. This was supposed to be a kind of impersonation of President Gerald Ford, who was thought to have a tendency toward clumsiness, though he had probably the most impressive athletic background of any president in decades. Ford got the last laugh. "Mr. Chase," he said, "you are a very funny suburb."
Such musings are prompted by the media coverage of Saturday’s edition of the annual dinner, held as always in the Washington Hilton ballroom. And it’s clear that there has been no letup in the growing celebrity titillation and lessening attention to the ways of Washington that now characterize these annual spring spectacles.
Indeed, as the Washington Post’s Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger point out, the dinner itself is almost an afterthought during a four-day weekend social spree that has become "a binge of Hollywood celebrity stalking, high-end gate crashing, late-night cocktail schmoozing, shoulder-straining swag hauls"—all clustered around a dinner that has become a televised faux pageant of hype and pomposity.
(More here.)
Robert W. Merry | April 30, 2013, The National Inerest
On the list of the many factors contributing to official Washington’s dysfunction these days, no one would put the degradation of the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner near the top. But, as a reflection of what’s wrong with Washington, it deserves serious attention. I speak as a journalist who attended his first White House Correspondents' Dinner in 1975. That’s thirty-eight years ago, but who’s counting? Neither am I counting how many I’ve attended, but I think it’s probably thirty-four.
It was exciting back in 1975, at least for me, though there was only one Hollywood type in attendance. That was Danny Thomas, the actor and television personality, who provided the talent for the evening. He bombed. But it wasn’t important because the dinner had nothing to do with Hollywood. The next year Chevy Chase did the honors. He climbed atop a ladder and promptly fell off, landing on the floor in a heap. This was supposed to be a kind of impersonation of President Gerald Ford, who was thought to have a tendency toward clumsiness, though he had probably the most impressive athletic background of any president in decades. Ford got the last laugh. "Mr. Chase," he said, "you are a very funny suburb."
Such musings are prompted by the media coverage of Saturday’s edition of the annual dinner, held as always in the Washington Hilton ballroom. And it’s clear that there has been no letup in the growing celebrity titillation and lessening attention to the ways of Washington that now characterize these annual spring spectacles.
Indeed, as the Washington Post’s Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger point out, the dinner itself is almost an afterthought during a four-day weekend social spree that has become "a binge of Hollywood celebrity stalking, high-end gate crashing, late-night cocktail schmoozing, shoulder-straining swag hauls"—all clustered around a dinner that has become a televised faux pageant of hype and pomposity.
(More here.)
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