WP: With Rich Little, Press Corps Is Assured a Nice Impression (buried at end of article is story)

[FreeStateDemocrat]

With Rich Little, Press Corps Is Assured a Nice Impression

By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 21, 2007; Page D01

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But even a nice paycheck doesn't make playing black-tie Washington worthwhile, says Lewis Black, comedian and "Daily Show" regular. "What they want at those events are jokes, and P.C. jokes just aren't funny," said Black, who grew up in Silver Spring. "You spend the rest of the year making fun of these people, and when you come to Washington, you have to turn your act into a series of innocuous knock-knock jokes. It's just painful."

When he performed at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Association dinner in 2005, Black said, he edited all of his usual material, even avoiding saying "nipple" in reference to the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" incident. He also thought it was inappropriate to use the word "laid" in the punch line of a joke about his high school prom, which had been held in the same Hilton Washington ballroom as the dinner.

As for Little's being hired this year by the White House Correspondents' Association, Black said: "It's like going from Jackson Pollock to paint-by-numbers. God love Rich Little, but he's not in this decade. He's in no position to pose any threat to anyone. He makes Bob Hope look like Lenny Bruce. It's sad that we've reached this point" with comedy as political expression.

Another reason to scrap the dinner altogether, suggests Rem Rieder, editor of the American Journalism Review. After the Colbert controversy last year, and an earlier one in which Bush joked about not finding weapons of mass destruction, Rieder wrote that such press-politico events reflect the "smugness" and arrogance of the news media, suggesting that they are "part of a wealthy elite, completely out of touch with ordinary Americans."

The hiring of "a controversy-free" Little underscores the point, he says: "Do we really need a neon sign to proclaim the coziness of the White House press corps and the White House's occupant? It's really hard for me to understand making a decision like this, particularly so close to the WMD debacle. The dinner must go."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/20/AR2007012001287.html

[terrya]

1. I'm all for scrapping that event entirely.

It's about goddamn time the White House Press Corps starts acting like reporters again. I've always been sort of uneasy watching reporters who are supposed to take a impartial stance towards the President and the White House in general and who are supposed to take what I think is an adversarial role in covering the President yucking it up at the President's jokes at some black-tie dinner. I wish the damn thing was scrapped after Bush's "comic" video about looking for WMD. If that wasn't an excuse to cancel it once and for all, I don't know what is.

[tanyev]

2. Just change the name to White House Presstitutes Association.

Then they can have lots of enjoyable evenings together.

"I loved Colbert and thought he was outstanding," Scully said, "but some people don't get his brand of humor. Do you want to invite someone to a party and make them into a political pinata? That's not the purpose of the dinner. It's for and their sources and contacts to have an enjoyable evening. That's what we're trying to do."