Hey I'm on the side of the comedian, Michelle Wolf, who skewered, and eviscerated Sarah Huckabee Sanders and the current Presidential Administration at the White House Correspondents dinner over the weekend. It wasn't exactly hilarious, but her comments did seem pretty spot-on. I did not see or read her whole monologue, but I saw excerpts and her bit seemed like one of those classic, cringe-inducing "Roasts" that Dean Martin, (remember him?), used to host just for the alcohol-fueled hell of it.
Maybe sort of mean, but hell, it all seems like a pretty "truthful" monologue. Speaking truth to power, right? The truth. It's not polite. It's sometimes not nice. Often it stings. Sarah Huckabee Sanders gets up in front of the Press on a daily basis and lies and obscures with the best of the great Political Disinformationists, and Propagandists.
Michelle Wolf:
“Every time Sarah steps up to the podium, I get excited. I’m not really sure what we’re going to get, you know? A press briefing, a bunch of lies or divided into softball teams. ‘It’s shirts and skins, and this time don’t be such a little bitch, Jim Acosta. I actually really like Sarah. I think she’s very resourceful. But she burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smokey eye. Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies. It’s probably lies.”
AND
The response to the monologue was a little mini-tempest of laughter and outrage. A mini-kerfuffle. According to conservative lobbyist Matt Schlapp: “Journalists should not be the ones to say that the president or his spokesperson is lying.”
Of course, conservatives like Matt Schlapp are part of the great unhinged political moment. They don't want us to listen to Scientists, especially if they tell us the planet is heating up from Carbon Dioxide, and they don't want journalists to point out when a politician and his minions are spouting lies. I would say, contrary to Schlapp, that truth-telling, and calling out the lies, is exactly what we expect journalists and comedians, and scientists to do.
I will give Rob Reiner, director of "Spinal Tap," and the most famous 70's "Meathead" the last word: "I attended the WHCD last night. Donald Trump has so poisoned the atmosphere by attacking the disabled, gold star parents, Muslims, Mexicans, Blacks, women, the press, the rule of law that a comedian who simply tells the truth is offensive? She’s joking. He’s not."
