WASHINGTON – In another blow to President Bush’s image as Commander-in-Chief, comedian/impressionist Rich Little was sent into the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner without sufficient protective humor.
“It was a bloodbath,” said one anonymous reporter. “I haven’t seen anything like it since Chevy Chase’s talk show.”
Working behind-the-scenes with the White House Correspondents’ Association, President Bush and Pentagon advisors based their decision to send Little on last year’s surprise attack by Stephen Colbert, which, according to administration officials, will forever be known as “Pearl Colbert” – a grim evening that left the administration and the Washington press corps bloodied by guerilla satirical tactics which unjustly targeted flagrant abuses of executive power and members of the media who enabled them. Strafed and shelled by a cruel display of wit and reality, most of the press corps, including the President and the First Lady, barely escaped with their sense of entitlement and delusions intact.
General David Petraeus, who helped architect this year’s campaign, reasoned, “Look, many people might fault our Rich Little strategy. But our primary objective was to protect the president and the men and women who serve him in the press.” He then quipped, “And that mission was accomplished.”
But most who attended this year’s black-tie affair thought the psychological effect of Little’s bombing would remain with them for years to come.
“Maybe you don’t understand,” said a shaken David Gregory. “I watched this man, I watched him walk into the room…and open with jokes about Canada.” Gregory paused a moment to compose himself. “The guy never had a chance. My heart goes out to his family.” Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, observed, “Last year, when they invited Colbert, that was a complete accident. This year was an assisted suicide.”
Comedian Jerry Seinfeld, not in attendance but reached for comment, said that if President Bush truly supported comedians he would “never again send them into harm’s way without sufficient jokes.” Seinfeld also called into question Little’s readiness. “I mean you can’t expect someone who’s been opening for Robert Goulet to be prepared for this. You know what that’s like? That’s like asking a newly lapsed vegan to enter the Coney Island Hot Dog Eating Contest. Believe me, no one is betting on that guy.”
Some in the audience were more charitable. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, commending Mr. Little’s unexpected assault on Canada, kvelled, “No one could’ve predicted Canadian jokes at a correspondents’ dinner. It was a crafty surprise attack that stunned our enemies.” Added Gates, “We probably won’t know just how effective Rich Little’s performance was until sometime in late summer. But I think he made his presence clear and took the fight to comedy.”
President Bush refrained from telling jokes this year, explaining to the audience, “While in the past I’ve mined comedy gold from the war in Iraq with such classic bits as ‘Well, I Don’t See Any WMD Over There,’ this year the incident at Virginia Tech has, well, made my heart a little too heavy, for the moment anyway, to dip back into that wellspring of humor known as the Iraq War.”
Setting the tone for the proceedings, Steven Scully, president of the Correspondents’ Association, said, “Let us be reminded that sucking up is not the same as selling out, nor does an evening of excrescent fawning mean we prostitute our press freedoms without conscience.”
Little closed his performance by leading the room in a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands.” Journalist Charlie Savage, an up-and-coming reporter who just last week received a Pulitzer prize for his expose on the Bush administration, dropped to his knees in the middle of the song and committed Seppuku with David Sanger’s oyster fork. Though no members of the Washington press corps noticed.
A busboy later discovered Savage’s crumpled, eviscerated body while cleaning up after the event.
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The Wounded-Courier is the satirical news division of MediaBloodhound.
Little Sent Into Dinner Without Protective Humor
Posted by: MediaBloodhound | April 24, 2007 at 03:18 AM
Laughing as I write this!! Nicely done.
Posted by: vspot | April 24, 2007 at 01:02 PM
In honor of the great Texan idiot a Rosary was said. No response yet from high above (Maybe Ingmar was right Tip: Check out “Winter Light”). Me thinks we are doomed and cursed. And the great bearded wanderer, well so far no Cecil B. DeMile parting of waves or clouds, no snakes from canes, no zizzing and dripping like with the Austrian self-cleaning razor, no over-heating like with the tropical fish. Okay, I’ll skip the good Catholic metaphors. Here you go: we’re doomed by this jerk-off.
In the mean time, and the little bastard is mean, whatever course of action you arrive at is entirely up to you. Whether a well aimed brick to the lower cranial cavity or nation-wide demonstration of 20 million, the cops put up their little putz barriers at 5:00. But every sold-out yuppie bastard on my street has their parking spaces blocked off. The T.V. pundits swear that if you get there before 4:00 you'd have a good chance of finding a tight one, parking space that is.
Due to obstinacy on the part of the drooling idiot in the White House that breaks the speed of light barrier that Einstein casually mentioned about causality, I can't respond with the usual rapier wit. Lately when observing the poor memory retaining skills of the typical “red” state participant in this great experiment called Democracy, I've been thinking of sucking the raw end of a .38 police special. I guess I’ll have to be the designated Quaker.
Pug Boyden always told me I could back out any time. Wait a minute, I gotta be the 'stand up guy.' I gotta be the glad-hander. Would you like one or two olives with that martini? I can tell you, pending surgery, I’m back in harness, the alliterated verbiage spills forth like teenage Tijuana projectile vomiting. A sure sign of moral turpitude or job stress or properly inflated tires? Or perhaps an avoidance tendency, 'familiarly' genetic and emotionally defensive against nankers here and in D.C. Or perhaps the 70's recreational drug dalliance continues to exact its toll on me 'toiny' brain as it's asked to run the same digital maze Monday thru Friday and then absorb this horseshit spin and grin. As for Bush and his judgment: "Are you sure it's plugged in?" "Did you turn the damned thing on?"
Posted by: Carl Gordon | April 24, 2007 at 01:51 PM
Never realized how much I appreciate good satire until I read this. That's a compliment, bub.
Posted by: Daphne Chyprious | April 24, 2007 at 01:51 PM
Rumor has it the President hasn't laughed at the Correspondents' Dinner for two years straight. Attendees tell this reporter that's because this year none of the jokes were funny while last year Bush just didn't understand any of them.
Posted by: nowwithmorehair | April 24, 2007 at 01:56 PM
Such dramatic questions of Being and Nothingness, are cast to the wind when Whoopee Cushion Time is factored in. If you choose to press forward (Mr. Phelps?), Georgie (Lil' Nell), will be running, lost in the crap jungle of his own creation, as his present behavior is crazier than a rat in a can. My advice to him is to grab hold of Saint Skippy's back pocket so that the hairy arm of psychological centrifugal force doesn't fling him off into space.
His inbred sibling/family situation is still languishing as the pinheads he was born amongst struggle to justify their insolence and terminally constant stupidity and cruelty. They have now taken to calling relatives and toadies to scatter feces and prime the media pump for dis-information. Who the fuck knows what kind of fertilizer they’re currently engaged in spreading to the aforementioned bend-over buddies. Our strategy should be to keep sending Chinese-water-torture type enquiries, courtesy of all you liberally biased media pawns and comedians out there, to them on a regular and annoying basis as to what their intentions are, and after a reasonable period of time, initiate court action to eat shit or get off the pot. I figure we can hold out longer than Bush’s liver can. The circumstances have remained pretty constant, meaning daily pain, daily meds, physical therapy once a week (turn off the T.V.), which exasperates daily pain, which requires daily meds, which, well, you get the idea. We have 20 months to sue the fuck out of somebody, so right now our focus should be to try and reduce/live-with the pain and discomfort as much and as soon as we can. I’ve been avidly gardening in my backyard on the weekends and that takes my mind, shattered and crushed as it is, off my troubles. To be honest, I’m more worried about Pelosi; she puts up an invincible calm exterior - that is until she explodes from trying to keep a lid on that caca too tightly. I’d tell her to not worry about all that shit, that we can handle it and that she needs to take care of and ask for help for herself. It’s a thought anyway.
Posted by: Carl Gordonini | April 24, 2007 at 02:29 PM
Hey Carl...I think I speak for many when I say, "Dude, you are so on top of it all!"
Posted by: sybil | April 24, 2007 at 03:07 PM
I guess Rickles and Gallagher weren't available this year either.
Franklin Foer, editor of The New Republic, observed, “Last year, when they invited Colbert, that was a complete accident. This year was an assisted suicide.”
Sweet Jesus, I love that!
Posted by: Desi | April 24, 2007 at 04:06 PM
Sometimes you just have to do a White House Correspondents' Association dinner with the jokes you have rather than the jokes you wish you had.
Posted by: Dennis | April 24, 2007 at 05:02 PM
Soon they will replace the press briefings with glory holes.
Posted by: Armed and Hammered | April 24, 2007 at 10:15 PM