Crazed Haters Unbound

Last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was a disgrace. “Comedian” Michelle Wolf was vulgar and partisan. I know, that is par for the course at these events, but Wolf went far beyond the pale. Her attacks on Sarah Sanders were particularly vicious and inexcusable. I spent some time with Hugh Hewitt tonight; he was at the dinner and said–I don’t think he would mind my repeating this–that he would have walked out in disgust, except that Sanders sat through it. If she had walked out he would have followed her, but as long as she was willing to take the abuse, he stuck it out.

President Trump showed good judgment by staying away and addressing a big crowd in Washington, Michigan instead. A few star baseball players were invited, like Brooks Robinson and Dennis Eckersley. One can only speculate as to what they made of it.

As far as I have seen, the dinner has been universally panned. CNN’s Jeff Zeleny said: “It was an embarrassment in the room and surely to the audience at home.”

Audience? What audience? I haven’t seen the ratings, but I can’t imagine many people were watching. Unfortunately. It would benefit Republicans if this sort of fiasco were more widely viewed. Those who suffered through the event on television presumably saw, in addition to Wolf’s mean-spirited attacks, comments by Correspondents’ Association president Margaret Talev, who betrayed a remarkable lack of self-awareness:

Correspondents’ association president Margaret Talev — standing under a banner that said “CELEBRATING THE FIRST AMENDMENT” — began the evening by saying:

“The journalists we’re celebrating tonight help keep our democracy healthy.”

Actually, they don’t. For the most part they are a disgrace to their profession. They have betrayed the longstanding ideals of objectivity and accuracy, and thereby have brought political journalism into disrepute with most Americans.

We reject efforts by anyone, especially our elected leaders, to paint journalism as un-American, to undermine trust between reporter and reader, to cast doubt on the relevance of facts and truth in the modern age. An attack on any journalist is an attack on us all.

I don’t know of anyone who has said that journalism is un-American. I assume she was talking about President Trump, but he has never said any such thing. As for trust between reporter and reader, that has been undermined over a period of decades by biased and incompetent reporters and editors. And no one “casts doubt on the relevance of facts and truth.” The problem is that all too often, we don’t get facts and truth from White House correspondents and other reporters. And finally, the claim that an attack on any journalist is an attack on all journalists is idiotic. Biased and inept reporters deserve to be attacked.

This isn’t about protecting the business of journalism. It’s about protecting the rule of law.

More lunacy. When the rule of law was actually under attack during the Obama administration, almost all journalists cheered the president on as he signed unconstitutional orders like DACA, and as he politicized the Department of Justice and the intelligence agencies.

What I don’t understand is why the Democrats don’t pay a bigger price for the crazed hatred that they continually display. Since the 2016 election, the Democrats have directed toward President Trump an unprecedented stream of over-the-top, and sometimes demented, vitriol. Last night’s hate-fest was sadly typical–for the Democrats, all in a day’s work. Is this really the party that voters want to see in power again? One wouldn’t think so, but I guess we will find out in November.

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