A ‘Little’ cowardice for the White House Correspondents Association dinner

January 19, 2007

I realize that Stephen Colbert’s performance at last year’s White House Correspondents Association dinner was considered “edgy” by the old-school establishment. Colbert appeared in character, and delivered a hilarious monologue, which just so happened to skewer both the president and the reporters who cover him. It was a classic moment, which we weren’t likely to see again.

Sure enough, Correspondents Association President Steve Scully announced this year’s featured guest will be Rich Little. Scully insists he “loved” Colbert’s performance, and Scully swears he didn’t field any complaints from the White House, Bush included, about Colbert’s act. Still, he’s going in a different direction this year. “My dad loved (Little), and I know he will appeal to an older generation,” Scully said this week.

As a rule, when you have to say “My dad loved him,” to sell a performer, you’ve probably picked the wrong guy.

Nevertheless, Little is likely to deliver a tame, inoffensive performance. Just in case, it appears the Correspondents Association has ensured it. (via Attytood)

Rich Little won’t be mentioning Iraq or ratings when he addresses the White House Correspondents’ Dinner April 21.

Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don’t want a repeat of last year’s controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves.
“They got a lot of letters,” Little said Tuesday. “I won’t even mention the word ‘Iraq.'”

Little, who hasn’t been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he’ll stick with his usual schtick — the impersonations of the past six presidents.

“They don’t want anyone knocking the president. He’s really over the coals right now, and he’s worried about his legacy,” added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

Scully said his mantra for booking the annual event is, “Somebody who singes, but doesn’t burn. Somebody who is funny and will make fun of the White House, but won’t cross the line.”

Rich Little doing Jimmy Carter impressions will “singe but not burn”? And to ensure the ultimate in timidity, the Correspondents Association gave Little instructions about being nice to Bush?

It’s one thing for Bush to put himself in the bubble, freed from the burdens of critics or competing ideas, but for the White House Correspondents Association to help create yet another bubble, even at the annual roast-like dinner, is just sad.

Just how delicate are the president’s sensibilities? And why do the reporters who cover the White House care so much? As Will Bunch put it:

OK, free speech means you also have a right NOT to say anything or criticize anybody. But for the White House press corps to instruct Little not to “knock” the president smacks of a kind of censorship, from the very people that we’ve placed in the front line trenches of free speech.

We won’t belabor the point, because it’s too obvious, but America desperately needs a press corps that’s more eager to offend the White House, not less eager.

We should be so lucky.

A real milestone in journalism.

  • From an interview with Lewis Black (!) who did the dinner the year before Colbert.

    Q) In April, you performed at a Washington correspondents dinner. Dick Cheney was sitting right behind you. Have you met many of these people?
    LB) No, this was the first time. A third of my act at this point is about performing there. It was horrible. As an audience, we’re talking congressmen, lawyers, judges, lobbyists, congressional correspondents. It’s the most uptight audience on the planet Earth. The only thing that might be worse in terms of being a tough crowd would be for me to play a Baptist convention. That won’t be happening.

    The powers that be were not amused… hard to be when one’s sense of humor was surgically removed and the nerve endings were then connected to one’s ass.

  • Where are those WMDs?
    Not here.
    Ha Ha
    Yeah, I’m sure that our wounded soldiers, widows & kids with no Dads or Moms won’t be offended by a replay of Commander Codpiece’s performance a few years ago.
    Thank God Bush didn’t get caught getting a BJ in the Oval office. THAT would be an impeachable offense. Jeff Gannon’s not saying a word.

  • but the one i’ve really lost respect for is Little. what comedian who has been at his level lets a representative for the audience dictate how he does his routine? this isn’t a starving artist playing birthday parties for $1500. it would be funny if Little concluded that given his age this gig isn’t likely to come up again, so he goes out and excoriates Bush anyway.

  • Did anyone else have the same reaction that I did to word that Rich Little would be the host…”He’s still alive?”

  • I don’t know who is more despicable in this matter, the White House for insisting on a completely bland performer or the Press organization (and I include the members who were mightily pissed last year when Colbert honed in on THEIR shortcomings).

    Everyone’s worthless in this case.

  • Defending Bush’s legacy from comedians at the White House Correspondents Association dinner? If they’ve sunk that low, they’re defending it’s ashes.

    I hope this turns around and bites them. If Little is as milquetoast as we’re led to believe, it might be impossible for coverage to not compare his act to Colbert’s. I’d love to see Colbert’s act come back for another trip through a newscycle.

  • I like Mark Evanier’s suggestion that Little ought to start his routine with an impression of Stephen Colbert. But that would probably take some kind of guts…

  • Maybe they’ll replay that hilarious “Where’s the WMD” tape.

    Bush is such a funny guy. All the dead soldiers and civilians in Iraq must have been laughing about the missing WMD right up until the time they were blown up.

    Half a billion dollars isn’t nearly enough to whitewash THIS legacy.

  • I hope Shruby is wearing his lambskin underwear today. We certainly wouldn’t want his Shrubness to experience any chafing.

  • You’d think reporters would be a little more media savvy. They’ve taken all the damage done to their reputations last year, and turned it into a parody of themselves.

    What Colbert showed is how the press corps maintains and enables the Bush bubble willingly, and that the watchdogs are just as out of touch and in denial about the state of DC as anyone else. By bringing in a lame has-been, Reagan fave of yesteryear, and instructing him not to get out of line tells you something.

    After all, who wrote all these angry letters complaining about Colbert’s lack of reverence for dear leader? THE WHITE HOUSE PRESS CORPS!!!!

    Wow. Just, wow.

  • These are the same Correspondents who Bush dissed during his SURGE Speech by not letting them have a pool reporter in the room or letting their pool photographers take pictures of the speech..they even sent Tony Snow a letter lamenting the fact they were shut out of the most important speech Bush has given regarding Iraq in months..

    Why does the media enjoy the sadistic give and take the Republican party subjects them to time after time…..

    Repubs can kick the media up and down the street all day, challenging their credibilty and patriotism, but time and time again the media comes to the defense as is the case here.

    Yet a DEM like Obama who has ruffled very few feathers with the MSM so far can have an issue made of his middle name, his smoking habits, and his beach attire. WTF????

  • Yeah…Das Boosh wants Rich Little, a comedian who has all kinds of jokes about “the wrong kind of Republican.” Eisenhower, Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, and “dear old daddie.” Should be George’s perfect cup of tea, eh?

  • I’m sure a lot of humour will come out of the Dinner, all of it unintentional. I’ll be looking for how funny the anachronisms will be when looked at through the lense of this idiot presidency.

    My advice to Rich Little is to bring a body guard, preferably a pro wrestler and while Rich is impersonating “old blue eyes” and Jimmy Durante, the wrestler will be bitch-slapping Bush and putting him through the Dragon sleeper, the Thumb choke hold, the Tongan death grip, the Two handed chokelift, the Body scissors, the Gutwrench, the Boston crab, the Bow and arrow hold, the Octopus hold, the Argentine leglock, the Ringpost figure four leglock, the Haas of Pain, the Damascus head-leglock, the Inverted Indian deathlock, the Spinning toe hold, the Texas cloverleaf with armlock, the Reverse crucifix, the Lady of the Lake, the Pumphandle, the Armpit claw and the Tree of woe.

    Either that or a troupe of sexual athletes to go all Aristocrats on Bush’s ass.

  • “Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents’ dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I’m dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I’m a pretty sound sleeper — that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.”….

    it was freekin classic I tell ya!

  • Today the comedians, tomorow the history book writers: “Hey can you go easy on the guy? He’s concerned about his legacy.”

    There’s a newspaper in Aspen whose motto is “if you don’t want it printed, don’t let it happen.”

    If Bush didn’t want to be ridiculed about Iraq, he shouldn’t have let it happen. If he didn’t want to be ridiculed for being an incompetent leader, he shouldn’t have run for office. At least he gets to laugh. Many of the victims of his presidency are laughing all the way to the morgue or the amputee wing of Walter Reed Hospital. Maybe in Bush’s own set-up this year, instead of looking for WMD’s in the Oval Office, he can help a private find his arm lost to an IED. “Nope, no arms under the presidential sofa.’ What a hoot that would be.

    Did the press go easy on Clinton about Monica? If Bill Clinton’s White House said go easy after the Lewinsky deal, would the press have complied? Not likely.

  • C’mon. Rich Little is perfect!!! What’s funnier to Bush, the Republican’ts and the MSM than Clinton impersonations and swipes at the Lewinsky affair??? Man, all three contingents will be laughing in the aisles remembering those “good ol’ days”.

    Oh, is Tony Orlando gonna be singin’?? “Tie a yellow ribbon ’round that old oak tree…” 😛

  • Well, it’s for sure that the guy who helped the Smothers Brothers get fired in 1969 after going for Nixon’s throat over Vietnam has been “tamed by time.” Sad.

    I have a suggestion between now and 2008: we should go to all the political rallies we can, and watch for the reporters. And then take and of the worst offenders we find out in back and beat the shit out of of them. Well, not that (pleasing as it would be), but let them know they’re in the headlights. And we should start whacking them for everything they write, make Richard Cohen think what he got last summer was a Sunday School picnic in comparison.

  • I’ll tell you exactly when we’ll get a ‘press corp’ that’s willing to burn the president: After 2008 when/if we get a democratic administration.

  • I wonder if he has to submit his script for examination before he speaks? I remember Rich Little as a pretty funny guy. Maybe he will fool us and be relevant and funny too.

  • All I ever needed to know about the Kool Kidz I learned from Sally Quinn, and her description of the DC vapors due to Clinton/Lewinsky. Remembering that poor “demoralized village” makes me understand why they must now have the soothing balm of Rich Little.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/quinn110298.htm

    The article quotes a veritable Who’s Who of the usual (dip$h!t) suspects. I could not even get through it this time.

  • Thanks for the article #27 TuMei. Those simpering hypocrites who were oh so concerned about Clinton have never said a word about Bush.

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