White House Correspondents’ dinner 2018: Comedy crossing the line?

WASHINGTON — Comic Michelle Wolf’s raunchy anti-Trump routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner — with barbs aimed particularly at Press Secretary Sarah Sanders — and a horrible joke about abortion — drew a rebuke on Sunday from the WHCA.

Wolf’s act at the Saturday event triggered an uproar. So much so that on Sunday night, Margaret Talev, the WHCA president said in a statement, that in the wake of “members expressing dismay with the entertainer’s monologue and concerns about how it reflects on our mission,” there will be a review of the dinner format.

Moreover, while the “program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.”

Trump skipped this dinner for the second year in a row, an annual black-tie event notable in this Trump era for a lack of A-list Hollywood celebrities.

Nonetheless, the cavernous ballroom at the Washington Hilton was packed. A “First Amendment” lapel pin was at each table setting. Press Secretary Sanders was at the head table, representing the Trump administration.

Wolf’s controversial performance raised debates about:

• Whether Wolf, formerly with “The Daily Show,” coming out with her new Netflix show, “The Break with Michelle Wolf” — crossed a line.

• Whether there are lines any more, given the norm-defying Trump and his degradation of journalism and his history of insults aimed at groups or people he does not like.

• Whether in total the evening advanced the cause of the need for credible journalism — or just furthered the Trump et al trope that journalists in Washington are out-of-touch elites.

If we were at a club — or if this were part of her TV show — Wolf’s schtick would not be remarkable. That she was invited by the WHCA to keynote makes a difference.

Trump, in a tweet, called the dinner a “very big, boring bust…the so-called comedian really “bombed.”

Here are two Wolf’s zingers aimed at Sanders: “I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. She burns facts, and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”

And this one: “And I’m never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders, you know? Is it Sarah Sanders, is it Sarah Huckabee Sanders, is it Cousin Huckabee, is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what’s Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women? Oh, I know. Aunt Coulter.”

Sanders, sitting a few feet from Wolf at the podium, kept a dour face. Afterward, Sanders stuck around, even posing for selfies.

White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told me on Sunday, “to mock Sarah in the way (Wolf) did crossed a line.”

On abortion, Wolf said, “Don’t knock it until you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it, you know, you gotta get that baby out of there.”

But Wolf’s more serious offense, said Gidley, a comedy aficionado, is that she wasn’t all that funny. Riding with Sanders in a car following the dinner, Gidley said, “If it were funny, (Sanders) would have said to me ‘that was legitimate, that was a good burn, that was funny.’ … She wasn’t funny.”

On line crossing, MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell summed it up in a tweet: “I have comedian friends who’ve done #WHCD. Many writer friends who’ve written WHCD jokes. I always advised them precisely on the line they shouldn’t cross. I respected the line. They did too but still they made mistakes. Then Trump destroyed the line. THERE IS NO LINE.”

The New York Times Peter Baker said in a tweet, “Unfortunately, I don’t think we advanced the cause of journalism tonight.”

NBC’s Andrea Mitchell said in her tweet, “Apology is owed to @PressSec and others grossly insulted ny Michelle Wolf at White House Correspondents Assoc dinner which started with uplifting heartfelt speech by @margarettalev – comedian was worst since Imus insulted Clinton’s.”

Indeed, WHCA president Talev delivered wonderful remarks about her late father who fled Communism in Bulgaria to immigrate to this country; the WHCA’s scholarships and the WHCA awards to top White House reporters.

Speaking on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” Talev said, “My aim and the way I sought to put together the program was to build a spirit of unity in that room, to rally around journalism and why it’s important.

“… My only regret is that to some extent, those 15 minutes are now defining four hours of what was a really wonderful, unifying night. And I don’t want the cause of unity to be undercut.”

As we discuss insults, I want to emphasize that what Trump says is far more important that quips from an edgy comic.

This line from Trump, coming last Friday, might have been underreported, so let me use it as a closer: Honoring the U.S. Winter Olympics team at the White House Trump said about the Paralympics, “And I watched — it’s a little tough to watch too much, but I watched as much as I could.”

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