The (Michelle) Wolf At the Door
/By diderot
a moment of truth for liberals
Editor’s Note: In the piece below, I suggested that Michelle Wolf’s performance had the power, above all, to divide progressives. Now we have proof!
Please scroll down to read Shawn Ross’ spirited defense of Wolf (and attempt to lay low your loyal editor…)
April 29, 2018
f you didn’t see comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner, do yourself a favor—don’t bother.
She was screechy, unfunny and an unquestionable bomb in that room. However, she did provide a valuable service to liberals by dividing us like nothing has since Bernie vs. Hillary. On one side, you have people who say, “I hate Trump, I hate Sarah Sanders and I hate all their lies. Therefore, it’s perfectly OK to embrace the worst of their tactics to fight them.” Eye for an eye.
Remember during the campaign when Trump went to spastic gestures to mock the New York Times reporter with a physical disability? That was horrible. But to some, it’s now OK to mock the physical appearance of Sanders.
If you took those same words Wolf used and put them in the mouth of a white man, Sanders would have a justifiable MeToo moment. But of course, to those blinded with hate, this truth is not evident.
On behalf of good liberals who know a critical misstep when they see one, let me recommend this course of action to Wolf apologists: try to hold two thoughts in your head at the same time. You are absolutely right to despise the Trump lies and the people who spout them. But you can also hold yourself to a standard of decency that won’t play right into the hands of the Trumpies. Wolf’s comments are now being dissected and edited into commercials which will alienate independent voters and help defeat progressive candidates in November. Good job, everyone.
If you don’t repudiate Wolf now…if you don’t see the hypocrisy…maybe it’s wise to stay silent and stop enabling Trump.
A Counterpoint
t’s #NerdProm season again in the nation’s capital swamp, so cue the predictable liberal hand wringing!
A comedian stood on stage and has the gall to proclaim, “the swamp creatures have no clothes!”
Oh my, how could she say that? What was she thinking? A comedian actually landing some tough quips, and offering some off-color remarks?
It can’t be!
Get over it, Diderot. Whining about Michelle Wolf’s hard-landing jokes against the swamp elites is a waste of your creative fire. You are missing the point, and doing El Hefe Trump’s work for him.
I suppose you would have preferred the one WHCD that this author attended. It was 2007. And the headliner was … Rich Little.
Rich Little!?!?
Yep.
Little was booked a year after Stephen Colbert did his job as the dinner’s host. Colbert made the attendees uncomfortable. He didn’t pull his punches. And unlike Wolf, Colbert did it while the guest of honor was sitting on the dais.
The swamp creatures couldn’t imagine why Colbert would do that. Afterwards, they apologized profusely to that honored guest, Bush II. They promised, “Next year, sir, it’ll be swamp friendly.”
And sure enough, Rich Little delivered in April 2007. It was a monologue so devoid of humor that we sat at our little tables praying for it to end. There wasn’t enough booze in the room to kill the uncomfortable silences during Little’s pauses for laughter.
Surprisingly, the hero that 2007 night was Bush II. The man-child-turned-president had the courage to flip his middle finger at the gathered swamp creatures—by not stepping up at all. Just weeks before a kid with a machine gun had mowed down 30-plus students at Virginia Tech. Thus, the accidental president said, he wasn’t up for delivering jokes. It just didn’t feel right. So, he did not respond.
(I’d be remiss if I didn’t note for the record that Bush II and his party had blood on their hands for Virginia Tech--for helping build a culture that worships guns over humans…but that’s another story.)
Anyway, back to Michelle Wolf. Your outrage at her is misdirected because you’re missing the real outrage. If there’s one thing the press and political “elites” of the swamp agree on, it’s that Wolf went too far.
Think about that for a moment. What does it mean?
I think it means this: politics to the swamp denizens is just a game played for the benefit of entertaining and inflaming the rubes at home. In the swamp’s fetid waters, all the creatures are friends. They marry each other. They work together. They hit the bars together. Journalist, lobbyist, politician, general or bureaucrat … they wink at each other when they shout for the cable TV viewers. Because it’s not real. They don’t believe anything. Or if they believe anything, it’s that they’re agnostic ambition is worth the six-figure paychecks they all take home. Living in a style that the rubes underwrite.
So, Diderot, please amend your piece. The outrage is #NerdProm itself. End it. Don’t let these people parade in their finery in front of us … showing us it’s all just a game inside the fabled Beltway.
And Michelle Wolf, if anything, didn’t go far enough. If we here in Rube-istan have to endure another one of these clown shows, let’s dial it up. I hope next year Dave Chappelle gets the nod.
-- Shawn Ross
