HuffPo: "Soldiers dying, millions unemployed, let's crack jokes @ the W.H. Correspondents Dinner!"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Wendy Button
Former John Edwards staffer
Posted: April 30, 2010 11:05 AM

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wendy-button/the-white-house-press-cor_b_558507.html

The White House Press Correspondents Dinner: With Millions Unemployed and Soldiers Dying Abroad, It's Time to Crack Some Jokes and Slap Some Backs

There is no other time than the night of The White House Correspondents Dinner when Washington is more out of touch with the country it guides and informs.

With the black ties and dresses, shiny hair and sparkling diamonds, bad jokes and back-slapping, it would be hard to tell that more than 37 million Americans live in poverty every day and millions more at the razor's edge or that more than 508,000 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans have sought care from a Veterans Affairs facility because some of the people at that dinner sent them off to war. That contrast of clashing Americas has always seemed unseemly like the Pope wearing fancy red shoes.

A few years ago, Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro made the documentary, Body of War, about an Iraq War veteran, Tomas Young. Tomas enlisted right after the attacks on September 11th and five days after he arrived in Iraq, he was shot in the chest and paralyzed. Tomas came home to a country completely unprepared to care for its veterans. His frustration led to action and he was one of the first veterans to start speaking truth to power about the lies that led us to war.

During one scene in the movie, Tomas is in his wheel chair watching The White House Correspondents Dinner. In the glow of the television, he sees the sea of tuxedos and dresses, Republicans and Democrats and their laughter and clapter as jokes are made about missing weapons of mass destruction. It is a chilling, heart breaking, moment of disconnect between the decision makers and those who decided to serve.

We forget that we are -- like it or not, for it or not -- a nation at war and we rarely act like it. Most Americans don't serve. Most Americans don't know that 2 million men and women have been deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan; the suicide rate for active duty soldiers has more than doubled since these wars began; nearly 15 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are unemployed, and their families have to fight to get a wheel chair or surgery or help with a creeping traumatic brain injury.

At tomorrow night's high profile dinner, our national press corps could begin to change all of this for our veterans.

[FrenchieCat]

1. Perhaps this President will have a point to make to the mediawhores

tonight, who really are the ones who shape this nation's opinions,
whether we like it or not, and whether we want it or not.

Sure, it would be great to have a media that no longer can make or break a politician,
or an issue, or incites the public to being at each other's throat.

I too wish for a media that can't get away with generating support for a war that didn't have to happen, and instead who reports the news as it should be reported.....because if we had such,
we wouldn't be in close to the mess that we are in.

That being said, the Huffington Post too is guilty of a whole lot
that this article complaints about, as it too publishes hyperbole headlines,
concentrates too much oftentime on the insignifant made relevant by them following the news pack,
and printing dumb stories that shouldn't see the light of day anywhere.

So yeah....there are a lot of serious issues going on out there,
but then, there have always been, including long before this dinner.
In fact, what is true today is true of all of the dinners going back quite a ways.

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

2. mental heath requirs taking a step back and relaxing once in a while

[Rex]

3. Well why not!? The M$M just sat around for 8 years and watched Bush & Dick

destroy America. The M$M needs to find some way to take blame for not stopping facism when they had a chance. I know it is hard guys, but you caused most of this shit as poster #1 put it so much better then I ever could.

[frazzled]

4. You know, life goes on

Humor is often credited, by scholars and survivors alike, as one of the defining coping mechanisms that prisoners in the concentration camps in Nazi Germany used. They also found ways to play music and write.

Just because there are problems in our country and our world doesn't mean we stop and excise all humor, pleasure, or beauty from life. That's not to attribute any of those qualities to the WH Press Corps. We know what they are, for the most part. But this is a tradition that has gone on for a very long time. And it's not just booze and boobs time for the celebrities and correspondents: it does raise money to provide scholarships to promising young journalism students. Heaven knows, we could use some of them.

[Hannah Bell]

19. The WH press corps = enablers & propagandists. Thus their "humor" = not funny.

[frazzled]

24. Um, that has nothing to do with my post

But you show deft use of the equal sign. You know, a lot of people hit the hyphen key instead of the equal sign, so I give you props for that.

[Hannah Bell]

27. what=ever

[HipChick]

5. Former John Edwards staffer..she sounds bitter..She then defected from Obama's camp to McCain

and supports Queen Quitter..

[Arkana]

6. You know, I don't recall seeing articles like this in the years Dubya and Dicko

were squatting in the Oval Office and we were at war.

Wonder why that is?

[Bluebear]

7. Here are some

Search bush+wmd+joke+dinner

This annual "dinner" is a disgrace, no matter who is President.

[Arkana]

8. That article was only written because of that horribly tasteless WMD joke he made back in '06 or '07

Otherwise I really don't see why we're kicking a fuss up over something that every modern President has done.

[Bluebear]

10. I think the ideal is is that the Press wouldn't dine & joke with the President...

since they are journalists and clearly in Washington to find out the truth.

(Choke), sorry, something went down wrong, that hasn't been the case in about 50 years~!

[virgogal]

9. People partied during WWII. It's human nature.

[Arkana]

12. Exactly. If we do not laugh, then all we can do is cry.

There's a reason comedians do USO tours--to give the troops something to laugh about in that bleak desert in the Middle East.

[CBR]

11. I will not enjoy life one more day!! I should not be watching

baseball or grilling today!

[BlooInBloo]

13. Confirmed: Anyone who doesn't sit in a dark room forever wearing a potato sack is a horrible person.

[earth mom]

14. delete

[earth mom]

15. Totally agree-it's let them eat cake-lawmakers and the press should never be friends

or have the audacity to laugh at our expense.

[Moses2SandyKoufax]

25. Now there's a fucking surprise..... n/t

[qazplm]

16. that's it, no more watching The Office

WTF, this was ludicrous when Bush was president too.

Taking a night of laughter does not mean you somehow degrade the loss of Soldiers or the impact of poverty.

[mfcorey1]

17. This is about three hours once a year.........to try and tie it to everything that happens is.....

wrong. This President can never be accused of not working hard and with the American people in mind. So, I say go on to the Whitehouse Correspondent's Dinner. The burdens of the world await you as soon as it is over. On second thought, it is there for you while you take a short recess.

[vduhr]

18. This smacks of the 'damned if you do and damned if you don't'

Obama bashing that has been coming from the right. Doesn't matter what he does, he gets criticized. Even a funeral has a wake. You have to keep a sense of humor to keep from going insane.

[southern_belle]

20. Didn't Bush quit playing golf...

Oh, thats right. He changed his mind and ended up playing - ooops!

[SmileyRose]

21. Wendy Button can kiss my skinny butt

The business I work for has laid off half it's workforce, the rest of us have taken 30% pay cuts and working extra hours on our own time to boot. My husband is back to fighting serious health problems after a 1 yr respite (and 5 years of mostly barely clinging to life before that). My nephew is in Afghanistan a neighbor is in Afghanistan. There are 9 vacant houses on my 38 house street and 3 more actively up for short sale trying to beat the impending foreclosure.

And I spent 4 hours last night watching the TEEVEE being a mindless vegetable. I also spent a whole day LAST weekend frittered away in my jammies surfing the net planning fantasy vacations to places I'll never be able to afford to go while my husband slept in between puking bouts from the chemo.


And if Barack Obama is a bad person because he takes a few hours playing pattyfingers to cultivate friends in the very MSM that will help make or break his presidency then I can't even imagine how she feels about my pursuits............

[jillan]

22. Tell her to get the stick out of her butt - Obama's best applause line when he mentioned those in

the Gulf coast and our troops overseas.

Maybe this former Edwards staffer should've been paying more attention to what HER boss was doing and not be so critical of others. :hide:

[PopSixSquish]

23. Former Edwards Staffer Huh?

Yeah, whatever Wendy. She wrote a terrible article on the Daily Beast talking about how she's leaving the Democratic party because everyone was so mean to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama had columns on the stage at Invesco field. And then when folks called her on her bullshit, she whined that people were being mean to her.

Isn't it strange that Hillary Clinton got over the campaign and Wendy didn't...

[Dr Morbius]

26. We may be certain that if Obama hadn't attended, he'd get slammed for that instead. (nt)

[howard112211]

28. The headline is racist crap. Mentions American soldiers but not those they are murdering.

American exceptionalism at its best. Of course "the other" victims don't matter.

[Vinca]

29. If you can't laugh every so often - even in the worst of times -

life isn't worth living. A couple of years ago I went to a church bazaar and struck up a conversation with a homeless woman living on the church's long porch. After the required serious discussion about what could I do to help her (nothing, thank you, she was independent and self sufficient), she told me one of the funniest stories I've ever heard. We laughed so hard I almost wet myself. Sometimes you just have to laugh.

[ipaint]

30. Watching the wealthy at their televised celebrity smoozing parties

has never been entertainment for me. And being a member of the lower class I still laugh plenty just not at displays of wealth combined with the rather obscene relationship between washington, celebrities and our crackpot media elite. They have pretty much morphed into a single entity anyway.

It's pretty disgusting.

[Paladin]

31. Hey, If It Helps Any: There Weren't That Many Jokes Cracked.

Worst Correspondents Dinner EVER.......