Michelle Wolf –a comic I had never heard of — was mean, dumb and notably unfunny at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but her audience was worse. They should have unanimously walked out on her or, at the least, taken the leftover monkfish on their plates and heaved it toward the stage until the woman ceased her vulgar and unnecessarily vicious attacks on Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was sitting about twenty feet away with her husband.
But with some notable exceptions, they did nothing. Some even applauded. Or laughed at this humorless harridan. It was the Robespierre moment of the #MeToo movement. Sisterhood is no longer powerful. It’s sadistic – especially when aimed at women on the “wrong” side. This is of a piece with sudden silence about the accusations against Tom Brokaw. Feminism isn’t just dead. It’s decomposed.
Later some MSM stalwarts would mutter that it was all a shame, that the evening was more important than Wolf’s perhaps unfortunate witticisms. After all, this was the Golden Age of Journalism. That was what should have been emphasized. Look how Donald Trump was being so bravely exposed.
What a crock! It’s the Golden Age of Leaking, not Journalism. The fantastic success of Woodward and Bernstein during Watergate has brought us to that. Blame “Deep Throat.” A journalist is now someone who answers the phone from a leaker, takes down what he or she says, and spits out the innuendoes and lies to win a Pulitzer. You don’t have to be Hemingway to do that. You just have to have a decent digital rolodex and be a good kiss-ass.
As for the brilliant exposé of Trump and his administration being done by these people, we know a huge percentage of it is just nonsense. The role of the press in the whole Christopher Steele dossier business would simply be nauseating if it weren’t sinister. When the full story of the suborning of the FISA court in an attempt to bring down a sitting president is finally fully revealed, the despicable role of the press, how they allowed themselves to be used, even encouraged it, will be uncomfortably evident. If you think the media are unpopular now, just wait until the inspector general’s report comes out.
But back to the Wolf Who Cried Girl. Some will say that Michelle was actually funny, that she was in the grand tradition of roasts and that I am just being a sensitive conservative snob or something. She’s a latter-day Don Rickles (although he was really a pussy cat).
Well, maybe, but, although I’m not a comic myself, I did write for the man who many think was the greatest of our age — Richard Pryor. And I can say this about Richard and his comedy — he was almost never mean-spirited. In fact, it was the reverse. Hip as he was — and there was probably nobody hipper — he brought everyone together with his humor. He made people feel good about themselves and the world.
Michelle Wolf and, more unfortunately, many of the people in her audience do not and didn’t want to do that. Our media was out to get Donald Trump and virtually all his friends and family from the very second he came down that elevator. They didn’t relent even for a moment when he was elected president, as they would for almost anyone else, to see what he would do. They didn’t give him the most minute grace period.
So he struck back at them. Wouldn’t you?
They better hope he doesn’t make peace with North Korea. Forget the WHCD monkfish. They’re going to have many tons of crow to eat.
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