Caricature by DonkeyHotey flic.kr/p/Ct4G4K https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

This time last year the big guessing game was whether President Trump would attend the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, aka The Nerd Prom, and allow himself to be subjected to public scorn and ridicule by people who were pretending to do so for the sake of good fun while pretending to enjoy the experience. For reasons that escape me, presidents do this and it is claimed, though I can’t verify it, that Trump was the first White House occupant to not attend since 1981 when Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt.

He missed this. This guy is supposed to be a comedian which apparently is a modern term for someone who is angry, bitter, and not very bright.

“We have to address the elephant not in the room. The leader of our country is not here. But that’s because he’s in Moscow.”

haahahahaha! A freakin riot.

Instead, Trump engaged in counter-programming. He held a rally in Harrisburg, PA.

https://youtu.be/FU47OqP8Oi0

This year there was early speculation that Trump would attend but that ended a couple of weeks ago when the White House said the administration would be represented by Sarah Sanders. What is Trump doing?

President Trump fleeing WHCD weekend in Washington for… Washington (Michigan) pic.twitter.com/DrCxqm2Hc9

— Betsy Klein (@betsy_klein) April 17, 2018

I think that Trump’s example here is something his successor should continue. It has always bothered me to see reporters hobnobbing at social events with members of the executive branch and members of congress and I’ve always found the president attending the White House Correspondent’s Dinner to be particularly grotesque. If these people are yucking it up together, how much of what you read is actually true and how much of it is kabuki? How many stories are spiked because someone doesn’t want to hurt the feelings of a friend? How many media hit jobs are carried out as favors to a friend? More to the point, what kind of a person socializes with people who a) don’t like him, b) don’t respect him, and c) are trying to destroy him. And acts like he’s having a good time.

A blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk-show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner tonight left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close. Earlier, the president had delivered his talk to the 2,700 attendees, including many celebrities and top officials, with the help of a Bush impersonator.

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk-show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.” He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.” Turning to the war, he declared, “I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, just three tables away from Karl Rove, and that he had brought Valerie Plame. Then, worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, “Uh, I mean . . . he brought Joseph Wilson’s wife.”

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, melting glaciers, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face. He advised the crowd, “if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail.”

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, “When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday—no matter what happened Tuesday.”

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides of the story—the president’s side and the vice president’s side.” In another slap at the news channel, he said: “I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the No Fact Zone.” Then he warned: “Fox News, I own the copyright on that term.”

He also reflected on the alleged good old days for the president, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story. Addressing the reporters, he said, “Let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell-check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife.

“Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know—fiction.”

He claimed that the Secret Service name for Bush’s new press secretary is “Snow Job.”