The annual dinner of the White House Correspondents' Association is supposed to be a relaxed affair where the industry recognises both professional achievement and also takes a light hearted look at itself. No one should take themselves so seriously that they cannot laugh at their own occasional lapses.
Speakers need to be attuned to the mood of the dinner and to those attending. It is not an easy platform but one that is essential to master if you are to retain credibility.
What happened on Saturday night was a disgrace. It was an impertinence less to those inside the room attending the dinner than to the millions of Americans watching it at the time or subsequently on their television screens. It was an even greater insult to the tens of millions who have since become aware of it around the world.
No. I do not mean Colbert. I am referring to the George Bush stunt with his impersonator.
I am astonished that this has had so little discussion on our blogs. That it has not is something of an indictment of politics today and, it must be said, of us all.
I am conscious that there is an age thing in my own reaction to this event. I have certain expectations about the dignity of office and the standard of public conduct. These may now be becoming ludicrously out of date. If so, I do not apologise. I am simply saddened at what we have all become.
One has to ask just how funny a speech should a President give at a time of national and international crisis? There is clearly a requirement at this annual dinner for him to demonstrate an ability to relax in public from great affairs and to take the opportunity to show his more human side. The question is: how should this be done and how far should he go? The judgement on this is a measure of the stature of the man.
What we were treated to on Saturday was not the quiet speech of a statesman at ease with himself and with the ability to show genuine self-deprecation whilst paying respect to his audience. What we were given was a staged and scripted comedy act, a frat boy piece of play acting arising out of the TV show era of politics. The President as a comedian, seeking popularity in the Neilsen ratings, with impact dependant on the scriptwriters getting their jokes well honed and the timing of delivery right.
This man, who has the world in turmoil around him and who can speak the words of nuclear threat and give the commands that have killed thousands of innocent women and children, spent time in his working day to rehearse a comedy routine in preparation for a public appearance. A Bob Hope and Jack Benny act for the Saturday night punters. Many of the jokes were funny because of the size of office held by the man, not because of the size of the man himself. What was the mindset behind this farce? Not just of the President himself, but all those paid to advise and guide him. What outcome did they seek?
It was an insulting piece of idiocy. It was cheap and demeaning to the office and to us. It spoke of one world in which there is the serious but hidden and secret reality of the Situation Room in the White House and another world which is cynically served up to us, the public, as the unreality of spin and presentation to placate our TV soaked minds.
Our glee at the Colbert piece of late night TV satire, is seen by the White House as indicative of what we now want as the sole public discourse in politics. This administration plays to it. Give the people what they want. Provide them with a cardboard cutout of a president and a clever impersonator. They are both the same; both unreal. It is valuable to those manipulating opinion polls as it distracts us from the true nature of the decision-making process. It lets us act out our outrage within a film set left over from "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" whilst the hard business gets done off camera.
This is not politics as I have known and understood it. Even given the particular nature of what that dinner on Saturday was all about, the contribution of the President should not, cannot, descend into something only capable of analysis regarding the quality of punch lines and number of gags per minute.
No matter what the occasion, when the President of the most powerful nation in the world is addressing me, at a time when every action being taken by him and his nation is the cause of desperate concern, I do not want it to be in the words of a second rate Rowan and Martin script by a second rate warm up comic. EVER!
(Cross posted from ePluribus Media)