Sunday April 30, 2006

Kill the Correspondents Dinner

The blogosphere is aflutter about what many seem to think was a subversive victory for Stephen Colbert at last night’s White House Correspondents Association annual gag fest. Colbert took lots of shots at Bush and the assembled press, but then so did Bush, who appeared alongside an impersonator who helped him make comic hay out of his dismal approval rating and disintegrating administration. I don’t care what licks Colbert got in, the annual dinner has to go.

Launched during the Wilson administration, the dinner is unsuited for the Age of Irony, or—rather—it is so well suited for the Age of Irony that it has become little more than a showcase for the sitting president to flourish his self-deprecating side—even if he believes himself to be the Messiah. If self-deprecation can extend careers as varied and lame as William Shatner’s and Robert Goulet’s, there is no limit to the evil it might launder.

The dinner is little more than a video news release—the morning news shows featured nothing but Bush’s routine, accompanied by approving guffaws—and the press corps has no business supporting it, especially in an era when politicos clamor to poke fun at themselves on Letterman and Leno and, yes bloggers, even The Daily Show to goose their approval ratings. It’s a product placement, where Bush pays with his participation so he can unfurl his nonexistent humility like a Target umbrella on Pagong Beach.

Will Colbert’s barbs dampen Bush’s press-sponsored credibility bonanza? Please. They’re still just jokes, and the more Bush takes, the better he looks. If Colbert had really wanted to disrupt the love-in, he would have looked straight into the cameras and told everyone to go home.

Posted by jim at 03:44 PM ||