Connect the Dots 101

Comedian dropped from hosting White House correspondents’ dinner

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wd7npdl4ro.amp

A cop-out. Pathetic!

Taylor Budowich, the White House deputy chief of staff reacting to the decision of the White House Correspondents Association to cancel the headline performer for its annual dinner.

“Pathetic” is right. While one is loathe to agree with anything that spews from the burst sewage pipe that is the Trump White House, they nevertheless got this one right.

After years of interrupting, talking over, hollerin’ at and disrespecting the Biden administration, the White House press corps has finally come to heel.

…explain why the Republicans can hire a comedian to spew Madison Square Garden with racist remarks about Puerto Ricans and Black people carving Halloween watermelons but the White House press corps can’t hire a comedian to take shots at a buffoon* who can’t manage—to paraphrase e. e. cummings—a simple declarative question without making seven grammatical errors.

Isn’t it humiliating enough to sit quietly by while an ignoramus* strings together lie after uninterrupted lie of a magnitude to beggar the imagination of a sideshow barker without also letting him dictate who can or cannot entertain you at your own goddamned dinner?

Pathetic.

*

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The association hosting the White House correspondents’ dinner has cancelled its headline comedy performance for this year’s event after tensions with the Trump administration.

Comedian Amber Ruffin was scheduled to perform at the annual dinner next month, but the White House Correspondents’ Association announced on Saturday that it has scrapped her appearance.

In a memo to members, the association said the event’s “focus is not on the politics of division,” rather it is to honour the work of White House journalists.

The move comes after the White House had attacked the association for choosing Ruffin as a headliner due to her criticism of US president Donald Trump.

Taylor Budowich, the White House deputy chief of staff, reacted to the association’s decision to scrap Ruffin’s performance by saying it is a “cop out.”

“No accountability at the WHCA, just a cop out statement – pathetic!” wrote Budowich on Saturday in a post on X.

He went on to criticise Ruffin, an Emmy and Tony nominated comedian and writer, as “hate-filled”.

WHCA President Eugene Daniels announced Ruffin as the headliner last month, saying she was chosen because her “unique talents are the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate”.

Ruffin, a writer for NBC’s Late Night with Seth Meyers, has mocked the Trump administration in recent weeks in her segments on the show, including his order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The WHCA has been at odds with the Trump administration in recent weeks.

Among other issues was the decision to bar the Associated Press from covering certain events, and the White House’s decision to directly control the press pool – the group of journalists who cover the White House and travel with the US president.

It is unclear whether Trump will be attending this year’s correspondents’ dinner. Guest entertainers for past dinners include Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno and others.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1wd7npdl4ro.amp

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