WH Correspondents Dinner Organizers Brush Off Criticism

"I've gotten a few e-mails from people who thought I hired Colbert to do a hit job on the president, and that is not the case."

but that's what it was, so thank you, Outgoing WHCA president Mark Smith!

WHCA president Steve Scully. From E&P on 4/19
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002382755
Mark Smith, White House Correspondents Association president and an Associated Press reporter, declined to weigh in on what Plame's presence might bring. "That's not for me to comment," he told E&P, also declining to reveal who invited Plame. "It comes at a time when we are wrestling over a lot of different things, like access issues."

The annual event that has become a must for local news and political types is set for the Washington Hilton. While Smith declined to opine about Plame's presence, he talked up the guest host, Comedy Central "newsman" Stephen Colbert. "He lampoons us as much as the politicians," Smith said. "So it will be great."

Admitting he does not watch much television, Smith said asking Colbert was actually the suggestion of incoming WHCA president Steve Scully of C-SPAN. "It was suggested and he was agreeable," Smith said of the TV talker. "I just kind of happened in to it."

recommended Stephen Colbert. Hmmmmmmmmnnnnn. We all thought that C-Span was trending conservative and to hear that Steve Scully recommended that Colbert be invited for the WH Correspondent's dinner is intriguing!

that was most certainly a hit job! And a great one, at that.

I hope to live long enough to be here when Grandpa decides it is time to march! Hang on to your ass!

a bunch of suckass wannabe celebrities who believe that hanging out with has-beens (Morgan Fairchild? Really?) will somehow give them a coat of stardust, when what they all really need are coats made of concrete and a long drop off a short pier.

Something lingers with me, though, about that affair, and that is the presence of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. I thought they'd figured out what a stupid thing it was to do when he said how they regretted having posed for that vampy Vanity Fair photo. I thought he'd gotten it out of his system after he raced his autobiography into print as soon as he was able to nail down a book deal.

But, let's face it, these people - the Wilson/Plames - are this government's adversaries, and they're responsible for Patrick Fitzgerald, just for starters.

So, where is their dignity?

Where is there sense of self?

Why must they lower themselves so that they can hang out with the faded glitterati and be seen on C-Span laughing at jokes that - as they have alleged - are being made by people who tried to destroy them, about things that have rent their lives in so many ways?

I find them to be just about as bad as the suckasses to whom I referred above before this screed got away from me.

I miss dignity in Washington. And now, even John Kenneth Galbraith is gone, and most Americans - I fear - took no note of his passing or knew who he was and what his life meant to us all.

End of rant.

I believe that celebrities must be invited by a member of the WHCA. Among some members it's a way of showing off their connections. Many of these "correspondents" believe they are celebrities in their own right. Interesting that someone from C-Span and the AP are concerned and not someone from CNN/Faux/ABC/Washington Post/ etc.

... nod. :smoke: