The White House Correspondents Association has asked biographer Ron Chernow to headline its 2019 correspondents’ dinner instead of a comedian because, frankly, they suck and are fucking scared. Just cancel the thing already.
The WHCA felt the need to do damage control after this year’s host, Michelle Wolf, brutally mocked the Trump administration. Lots of access-reliant reporters got mad too because of Decorum (and access). Who cares!
Since the WHCA have still been unable to locate its spine since earlier this year, they’ve decided to go with a far safer option. Chernow is the author behind Alexander Hamilton, a renowned 2004 biography of the founding father that Hamilton—the hit Broadway musical that I still haven’t listened to the soundtrack of—was based on. In 2017, Chernow published Grant, a 1,104 page biography of President Ulysses S. Grant that I bought for my dad as a Christmas present last year; he has yet to read it.
Variety reports that Olivier Knox, president of the WHCA, explained the shift by saying, “as we celebrate the importance of a free and independent news media to the health of the republic, I look forward to hearing Ron place this unusual moment in the context of American history.”
Nothing says celebrating a free, independent media than bowing to the tantrum of an administration that seems pretty comfortable with murdering journalists.
Aren’t we tired of this vapid camaraderie between Washington’s elite, the journalists covering them, and vaguely politically minded celebrities who are just happy to be there anyway? Please cancel this thing already and air a Friends rerun or something instead?