The main event starts at 8pm ET, but there’s a Red Carpet element as well as the usual self-promotion for the news media industries and DC lobbyists. The event lost White House attention during the Trump regime for the usual thin-skinned reasons. But like beauty pageants, “it’s a scholarship fundraising event”. More likely it will be a super-spreader event, and Dr. Fauci is not in attendance. The speaking part of the program starts at 930pm.
Tiger Beat on the Potomac is back:
“This is the first time this has happened in the post-Trump era, where it really is a moral question before the country,” Juleanna Glover says of the dinner and the attendant corporate-sponsored parties, where for years reporters and advertisers have mingled with bigwigs from across the political spectrum. “The question is, can Washington normalize? In my brain and body it’s ‘I hope not,’ because if so, then we’re morally benumbed. On a weekend dedicated to freedom of the press, is it okay to raise a glass and toast with a seditionist?”
She’s talking about people who fueled, enabled or profited from a style of politics that destroys the very institutions the dinner is supposed to celebrate. You can’t, after all, undermine the system and then embed yourself in it. And for others to pretend that the dinner is a Big Tent covering all of Washington’s power centers—the falseness of the image rankles.
[...]
Now, all of a sudden, the status quo ante is back. And though it’s the embrace of a pre-Covid normal that gets the attention—witness how the revived Gridiron Dinner turned into a super-spreader event, and the hubbub about whether Joe Biden’s WHCA appearance will put him at risk—it’s the return of the pre-2016 version of Washington, the party-hopping town of media-elite chumminess, that is stirring up complicated emotions: Given what’s happened since, is it okay to return to the old partisanship-stops-when-the-drinking-starts, everyone-can-come model?
Judging from the social calendar of the weekend, a sizable population of people seems to think the answer is: Hell, yes!
www.politico.com/...
Sunday, May 1, 2022 · 12:06:18 AM +00:00 · annieli
national anthem time and the presentation of the colors
Steven Portnoy WHCA president with the introductions and acknowledgements.
The Marine Band plays a medley of military tunes as food is served. CNN tries to work normal news coverage in at the same time. CSpan does its bank camera thing in the DC Hilton ballroom. They did cover the arrival of Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian.
CSpan shows clips from prior WCHDs like the 2005 Laura Bush speech interrupting GW Bush and making the “milking the male horse” joke. They then showed Wanda Sykes in 2009, then Hasan Minhaj in 2017.
Opening bit with James Corden. Jen Psaki… “Is that what you’re going to wear?”
Steve Portnoy talks, in his introduction he referenced his husband. They photoshopped POTUS into the 1923 image above. Portnoy referenced the 2011 event. WHCA gives five awards: Jonathan Swan of Axios wins one. Jonathan Karl at ABC wins for 1/6 reporting. Investigative Consortium for Investigative Journalism and WaPo win for the Pandora Papers. Billy Eichner does a bit on the awarding of awards. Gayle King Arrives, acknowledges April Ryan and pioneer Black women journalists Ethyl Payne and Alice Dunnigan.
Sunday, May 1, 2022 · 2:15:54 AM +00:00 · annieli
Acknowledgement of journalists who have died in the line of duty.
Biden begins speech, makes fun of his 42% approval rating. Makes Trump as plague joke, associates Trump with coup. Claims he knew Coolidge. Jokes that Fox News attendees are fully vaccinated and boosted, and makes a Brandon joke.
“I’m not here to roast the GOP. That’s not my style. There’s nothing I can say about the GOP that Kevin McCarthy hasn’t already put on tape.”
“American Democracy is not a reality show.”
Trevor Noah starts with a super-spreader joke. Goes to a Jeffrey Toobin joke, then a Kirsten Sinema one. He does a Trump impression and trashes DeSantis. The jokes are rapid. The usual roasting occurred, like Fox News as a Waffle House.
”The news is not always breaking”. It ends at 1045pm… on to the after parties.