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Michelle Wolf

Centerfield
Apr 30 2018 02:09 PM

Doesn't hold back with a scathing monologue at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner.

You can watch it here.

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4727074/ ... nts-dinner

Some say it was the hard truth the room needed to hear, some say it went to far. Conservatives walked out. Trump says she bombed. Ana Navarro at CNN says give her the Nobel Peace Prize.

What say you?

Me, I have mixed feelings. I mean, I agree with nearly everything the said, but even I felt like she went too far at times. The abortion thing I think was in bad taste. And the gym teacher remark about Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a personal attack that was unnecessary. Sanders has plenty of actions to attack without the gym teacher comment. I thought she left a hanger over the plate by not making a "tough to watch" joke.

But it's funny how the rightwingers will hold no punches when condemning Wolf. Bullying, mean spirited etc. It's the type of criticism we didn't hear at all when talking about Nazis or racist cops in Arizona.

One thing you won't hear from that crowd at all today? The phrase "tells it like it is".

Ceetar
Apr 30 2018 02:32 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I think she was remarkably restrained.

Edgy MD
Apr 30 2018 02:36 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

It almost feels like a setup. Trump out in Michigan. "The media" gathered back in DC wearing tuxedos and sipping champagne with a comedian ripping everything. Right wing media immediately pounces on everything as an offense to everything America holds dear.

seawolf17
Apr 30 2018 02:52 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Edgy MD wrote:
It almost feels like a setup. Trump out in Michigan. "The media" gathered back in DC wearing tuxedos and sipping champagne with a comedian ripping everything. Right wing media immediately pounces on everything as an offense to everything America holds dear.

Which is one of the myriad reasons why we're entirely fucked as a country. The religious right literally elected this douchebag on the platform of "he tells it like it is," and yet they can't handle it when it doesn't support their twisted world view. Look at the Kanye thing; the GOP has spent the last several years telling black athletes and entertainers to "shut up and play," but now suddenly Kanye is the second coming? Fuck that.

Lefty Specialist
Apr 30 2018 02:53 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Well Trump was out in Michigan for a reason....counter-programming. He had to talk about the Wall in a place that was Hispanic-free (he even checked that it was in his speech). And his rambling was sure to take away from an event he wouldn't dare attend in person ever again.

Every year they hire a comedian, and every year they get skewered. What do they really expect?

The first time someone came on and really let them have it was Stephen Colbert. The next year they had Rich Little do his Nixon impressions, which was disastrous.

My wife had a bit of a problem with the personal stuff on Sarah Hucklebuck, but that was it.

batmagadanleadoff
Apr 30 2018 02:54 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

There's nothing that the emcee could've done that would've been overboard. Pelt her with dogshit. Tar and feather her. Huckabee is Baghdad Bob in a dress. This whole administration should be the one's apologizing. What did they expect with a comedian delivering the speech. Get Dan Rather or Tom Hanks if you want decorum. Any second now, the evangelicals are gonna get offended now over the fetuses. Oh, think of those poor fetuses that had to hear that speech. Never mind that our secretary of state is a count shoe designer who can't qualify for a security clearance and whose idea of designing shoes is to to steal other designers' ideas. If there was any real justice, we'd have another Robespierre-like reign of terror to short circuit all the anarchy and chaos and outright lies that this scumbag crook president is gonna inevitably wreak on Robert Mueller.

d'Kong76
Apr 30 2018 03:15 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

It's pretty amusing that people think his blowing off the event is praiseworthy. The
Commander-in-Grief is a fucking coward. Grow some back-bone, show up, and take
a few shots across the bow and be done with it. Raise your glass and laugh.

Fucking asshole.

As for fetuses, the only place I've heard that word used in the news or news discussion
in the last 3-4 years is here.

batmagadanleadoff
Apr 30 2018 03:32 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

"Do not retreat a single inch."

Charles Pierce nails this one, I think. Some excerpts:

Faced with an administration* and a president* dedicated to poisoning both the spirit and the institutions of free government, and faced with an administration* and a president* dedicated only to looting those institutions that it cannot destroy, the representatives of the elite political media, through the woman at the head of their formal association, Margaret Talev, have determined that bowing to the fauxtrage aimed at a comedian on behalf of the administration*’s paid liar is the proper way to respond to the weekend’s festivities.


The daily briefings are pointless. Sanders isn’t even a particularly accomplished liar. (Neither is her boss.) The benign faces she puts on malignant policies are thin and transparent. The idea that people actually are carrying her water in reply to Michelle Wolf’s monologue on Saturday night is absolutely astonishing to me. (I thought the routine was a solid B, and I’ve never seen a standup for whom every joke landed, except for the late Richard Pryor.)


Sarah Huckabee Sanders is not your friend. She is, professionally, the enemy. I don’t care if most of the time she’s a combination of Florence Nightingale, Mother Superior, and Cher. When she gets behind the podium, her job is to belittle you and your profession and, by proxy, all of us who practice it. She is a tower of contempt. That she was discomfited on Saturday night because of a comedian is part of what she gets paid for. Discomfiting the likes of Sarah Huckabee Sanders is part of what Michelle Wolf got paid for. The forces were perfectly in balance.


https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/p ... ts-dinner/

Vic Sage
Apr 30 2018 07:30 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

waagh. the comedian was mean to me. waagh.
fake news. move along.

Ashie62
Apr 30 2018 09:01 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Pathetic all the way around.

Day after day

41Forever
Apr 30 2018 11:09 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

From a communications perspective, this was a misfire by the WHCA, which is supposed to be a bipartisan organization.

The focus of the coverage isn't on the merits of the event -- it's a fundraiser -- or even on Trump being thin-skinned for skipping. Instead, the coverage has been nearly entirely on the debate over whether the far-left comedienne said insulting, horrible things about the appearance of the a high-level, female staffer -- and whether the event itself should be discontinued. Even columnists on the left are grumbling about it. It doesn't matter whether or not the jokes were accurate or even in good taste. This isn't the coverage the organizers wanted. That's a communications failure. They handed Trump an unearned win.

Edgy MD
Apr 30 2018 11:17 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

And it was unearned, as he was saying equally offensive crap himself in Michigan, but got a pass because nobody expects any better.

batmagadanleadoff
Apr 30 2018 11:44 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

The only problem I see is the pansified media apologizing for this sack of shit of a press secretary. What has the world come to? They're out to destroy the media and the first amendment by crying fake news and campaigning for loose libel laws and to lock up the journalists but the comedians aren't allowed to tell them that the emperor ain't got no clothes. And all in defense of the most ridiculous press secretary ever.

Oh! And can someone please show me where that sad sack of horseshit Huckabee was personally attacked? Because I must've missed that one.

batmagadanleadoff
Apr 30 2018 11:56 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

If Wolf's monologue is deemed an unearned victory for this scumbag administration, then this country's lost its mind.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr
May 01 2018 05:06 AM
Re: Michelle Wolf

It may have given us some interesting spectacle, but the White House Correspondents Dinner is the problem, not Michelle Wolf (who, respectfully, FUCKING KILLED). Not only is it neither fish nor fowl... it can't be fish OR fowl. It's too chummy, and it's a big, honking conflict of interest; it's actually satirical, and it's untenable, as far as Washington is concerned.

As far as the actual content of this one goes... it's funny that the it's-just-locker-room-talk crowd is so deeply hurt over this. It can't be bullying if you're punching up, can it?

(And trust me, MGiM: she really isn't "far left.")

seawolf17
May 01 2018 12:29 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

batmagadanleadoff wrote:
this country's lost its mind.

Indeed it has.

MFS62
May 01 2018 01:36 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

batmagadanleadoff wrote:
The only problem I see is the pansified media apologizing for this sack of shit of a press secretary. What has the world come to? They're out to destroy the media and the first amendment by crying fake news and campaigning for loose libel laws and to lock up the journalists but the comedians aren't allowed to tell them that the emperor ain't got no clothes. And all in defense of the most ridiculous press secretary ever.

Oh! And can someone please show me where that sad sack of horseshit Huckabee was personally attacked? Because I must've missed that one.

You can't bully these motherfu**ers:
https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/you-c ... 1825648283

Later

Lefty Specialist
May 01 2018 01:39 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

The problem with the White House Correspondents Dinner isn't the comedian calling out the too-chummy relationship the press has with people it's supposed to be covering with a critical eye.

It's, um, the too-chummy relationship the press has with people it's supposed to be covering with a critical eye. And when someone calls them on it, everyone gets their fee-fees hurt.

You have Washington's elite there in front of you, the Trump Administration rolling disaster has been ongoing for 15 months, and what's she supposed to do? Shadow puppets?

Well, Rich Little's still available. He's only 80.

batmagadanleadoff
May 01 2018 02:22 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

The only problem I see is the pansified media apologizing for this sack of shit of a press secretary. What has the world come to? They're out to destroy the media and the first amendment by crying fake news and campaigning for loose libel laws and to lock up the journalists but the comedians aren't allowed to tell them that the emperor ain't got no clothes. And all in defense of the most ridiculous press secretary ever.

Oh! And can someone please show me where that sad sack of horseshit Huckabee was personally attacked? Because I must've missed that one.

You can't bully these motherfu**ers:
https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/you-c ... 1825648283

Later


That's one impressive polemical rant.

Excerpt:

...referring to the standup set Michelle Wolf, a comedian, performed at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday night, somewhat at the expense of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a brazen, knowing, and hugely powerful enemy of the free press and deceiver of the public by trade. As you’ve surely read by now, Wolf joked that Sanders’s makeup—her “perfect smoky eye”—is made of the ashes of the facts she burns.

That’s about as gentle a way as anyone could come up with to lampoon the single most relevant fact about Sanders and what brought her to a station in life that would make her a reasonable subject of lines in a White House Correspondents’ Dinner monologue in the first place. A frank and honest description of who she is and what she does would be much more harsh: Every day, Sarah Huckabee Sanders plants herself, by choice, between the public and the facts of what’s being done at the very highest levels of American executive power, and does her damnedest to break and delegitimize the means by which the two are brought together. She is one of the most visible and powerful people in American civic life, and she uses her visibility and power—she chooses to use her visibility and power—to confuse the public and degrade its grasp on the truth, rather than to inform or empower or serve it. Her willingness to do this on behalf of Donald Trump, day after day, and the unmistakable teeth-gnashing relish with which she does it, are the substance of her power, and the reason why anybody knows who the fuck she is at all. What history will remember about Sanders is that she is the scum of the fucking earth, and not the jokey means by which one comedian pointed out this inarguable fact—and that’s only if the senile rageaholic pissbaby moron on whose behalf she shames herself on television every day doesn’t annihilate the human race, first.

TransMonk
May 01 2018 02:30 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I thought Wolf's set was awesome...and the most honest thing that SHS has been associated with in maybe forever.

Benjamin Grimm
May 01 2018 02:38 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Making fun of Sanders' looks (and despite Wolf's denials, that's surely what she was doing, especially with the Aunt Lydia joke) is rude, and at first it struck me as going a bit too far, but that was just an initial reaction, before I realized it was a double standard. I know it's wrong to judge women by their looks, but this isn't that. If it's okay to make fun of Mitch McConnell because he looks like a turtle it's wrong to suggest that women in the political area need to be protected from that same kind of jab. (More than one comedian has made the turtle joke about McConnell, and as far as I know, nobody has really been offended except, of course, for turtles, who are justifiably offended by the comparison.)

TransMonk
May 01 2018 02:47 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Benjamin Grimm wrote:
Making fun of Sanders' looks (and despite Wolf's denials, that's surely what she was doing, especially with the Aunt Lydia joke) is rude...


That's not how I took it. I saw the Lydia line as a very specific reference to the character and not the physical representation. Especially when she followed it up with the jab at Pence.

The only dig at her physical appearance may have been the softball team line...but even that I first took as SHS picking on certain WH press reporters the way captains in high school gym classes do.

d'Kong76
May 01 2018 02:54 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr
May 02 2018 04:19 AM
Re: Michelle Wolf

TransMonk wrote:
Benjamin Grimm wrote:
Making fun of Sanders' looks (and despite Wolf's denials, that's surely what she was doing, especially with the Aunt Lydia joke) is rude...


That's not how I took it. I saw the Lydia line as a very specific reference to the character and not the physical representation. Especially when she followed it up with the jab at Pence.

The only dig at her physical appearance may have been the softball team line...but even that I first took as SHS picking on certain WH press reporters the way captains in high school gym classes do.


I think it was pretty obvious the jokes were directed at Sanders' comportment in the role, not her looks. She chose a woman from "The Handmaid's Tale"-- not the plain grandma from sitcom A or the dowdy mom from Netflix drama B, but the dystopian drama in which women and the environment and personal liberty are abused/neglected, for God's sake-- to whom she bears no physical resemblance apart from dark hair. If you hear "You were great as the apologist for the fascist government in this fiction about a misogynist dystopia" or "You burn truth... and turn it into cute eye makeup" as references to looks, not conduct... well, you're either looking for a looks-based attack, or you're not so great with joke comprehension.

Centerfield
May 02 2018 01:39 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

TransMonk wrote:
Benjamin Grimm wrote:
Making fun of Sanders' looks (and despite Wolf's denials, that's surely what she was doing, especially with the Aunt Lydia joke) is rude...


That's not how I took it. I saw the Lydia line as a very specific reference to the character and not the physical representation. Especially when she followed it up with the jab at Pence.

The only dig at her physical appearance may have been the softball team line...but even that I first took as SHS picking on certain WH press reporters the way captains in high school gym classes do.


I think the softball team line was unquestionably about her looks. She followed with a shirts and skins line that I think made it clear.

And sure, the dirtbags in the administration make jokes about women's appearances, but we are supposed to be better than that.

And the abortion joke was just in bad taste. I don't think abortion is funny in that or any other setting.

Ceetar
May 02 2018 01:41 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

the abortion joke was a hypocrisy joke.

A Boy Named Seo
May 02 2018 03:17 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I actually agree with ceets! The abortion joke was certainly uncomfortable, but that's what set up the punchline about mistresses.

Edit: I think good comedy can make us all a little uncomfortable if it shines light on a bigger truth. She certainly challenged those in power and those who are full of shit.

41Forever
May 02 2018 04:05 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Edited 1 time(s), most recently on May 02 2018 05:07 PM

I think the softball team line was unquestionably about her looks. She followed with a shirts and skins line that I think made it clear.

And sure, the dirtbags in the administration make jokes about women's appearances, but we are supposed to be better than that.

And the abortion joke was just in bad taste. I don't think abortion is funny in that or any other setting.



I actually agree with ceets! The abortion joke was certainly uncomfortable, but that's what set up the punchline about mistresses.

Edit: I think good comedy can make us all a little uncomfortable if it shines light on a bigger truth. She certainly challenged those in power and those who are full of shit.



All those points may be true -- but a night of in-your-face, uncomfortable, challenging comedy that is funny only to one side isn't the point of the event.

An HBO or Netflix special? All the way. Daily Show or Bill Maher? 100 percent.

The Correspondents Dinner is supposed to be a feel-good, bipartisan fundraiser that steps back from the usual roles and celebrates life in Washington, poking a little fun at the people in power. It's not supposed to be a one-sided, or a "we" vs. "them" event. If it's going to be vicious, one-sided attacks, with comedians trying to one-up each other (and gaining some attention for themselves), one side is just not going to participate. And why would it?

There is absolutely a place for that brand of comedy. That event isn't it.

And that's not a knock on Wolf, who did exactly what she does. It's on the people who hired her who should have known exactly what they were getting, or should have set some parameters.

batmagadanleadoff
May 02 2018 04:23 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

You're just totally oblivious to the extraordinary times we're living in. You're entitled to your political views, as vile as I might think they are, but I don't wanna hear you tell me that Trump's a nice guy, especially when it's based on three minutes of how's the weather talk. Truth is, you wouldn't say a bad thing about Trump if he had you pinned to the ground, straddled you, pulled down his pants and shit all over your face. So I can't even tell if you truly believe in the things you say you believe in or if you defend anything with an R next to it just because of the R.

batmagadanleadoff
May 02 2018 04:30 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Instead of shitcanniing Michelle Wolf and the WHCD every chance you get, why don't you tell us what you think whenever this scumbag administration cries "fake news" and "let's lock up the journalists"? Your opinion matters because , hey, didn't you used to be a journalist yourself?

A Boy Named Seo
May 02 2018 04:52 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I think the softball team line was unquestionably about her looks. She followed with a shirts and skins line that I think made it clear.

And sure, the dirtbags in the administration make jokes about women's appearances, but we are supposed to be better than that.

And the abortion joke was just in bad taste. I don't think abortion is funny in that or any other setting.



I actually agree with ceets! The abortion joke was certainly uncomfortable, but that's what set up the punchline about mistresses.

Edit: I think good comedy can make us all a little uncomfortable if it shines light on a bigger truth. She certainly challenged those in power and those who are full of shit.



All those points may be true -- but a night of in-your-face, uncomfortable, challenging comedy that is funny only to one side isn't the point of the event.

An HBO or Netflix special? All the way. Daily Show or Bill Maher? 100 percent.

The Correspondents Dinner is supposed to be a feel-good, bipartisan fundraiser that steps back from the usual roles and celebrates life in Washington, poking a little fun at the people in power. It's not supposed to be a one-sided, or a "we" vs. "them" event. If it's going to be vicious, one-sided attacks, with comedians trying to one-up each other (and gaining some attention for themselves), one side is just not going to participate. And why would they?

There is absolutely a place for that brand of comedy. That event isn't it.

And that's not a knock on Wolf, who did exactly what she does. It's on the people who hired her who should have known exactly what they were getting, or should have set some parameters.


yah I agree the people who hired her maybe should have watched her comedy before. That in itself is kind of hilarious. But I don't think her set or her comedy was the point of the event, even though it's certainly grabbed 1000% of the attention. It was 20 minutes out of an hours-long fundraiser meant to celebrate and advance journalism and... the first amendment.

And can we be real for one second? Sarah Sanders does lie her ass off every day on that podium. Kelly Anne invented something called "alternative facts" for crissakes. And if these jokes felt like vicious attacks, then maybe they cut a little close to the truth.

Edgy MD
May 02 2018 04:56 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

My problem is that it fed his BS narrative.

Ceetar
May 02 2018 05:31 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Edgy MD wrote:
My problem is that it fed his BS narrative.


His BS narrative is basically "I'm the law, don't question me. What I tell you IS the truth." and the media, particularly the correspondents, fed by the mouthpiece of the propaganda and state message SHS, help spread the damn narrative.

I mean, they're basically siding with Trump here.

No one that's in the media should ever publish or quote Sanders without heavy editing. Definitely not in headlines or tweets. They are lies, and they should be treated as such.

We're only barely getting by because the lies are so outrageous that many see right through them. But that's because they're not lies meant to deceive, they are lies meant to redefine the truth. So when the media just blasts out the propaganda, they might as well be TVs from 1984.

Edgy MD
May 02 2018 05:34 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I refer to the culture war narrative, that the press is the opposition, part of the cultural elite, that holds you and your values in contempt, and so can't be trusted.

If you don't think this moved the needle in his favor, you don't. I do.

I'm with Michelle Obama. Go high. Every time somebody goes low, the lowest-of-the-low president gets to play the victim.

RealityChuck
May 02 2018 06:20 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

I think, objectively, her routine was no better than so-so.

However, there is nothing wrong with her attacking public figures.

The problem is that the most vulpine Republicans think humor is bullying and bullying is humor. Since they tell jokes to bully, they think anyone who jokes about them is bullying.

d'Kong76
May 02 2018 10:17 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

batmagadanleadoff wrote:
Truth is, you wouldn't say a bad thing about Trump if he had you pinned to the ground, straddled you, pulled down his pants and shit all over your face.

That's vile, mean, inappropriate and unacceptable. In the end, we're all Mets fans here.
Please try to keep the personal attacks to a minimum and use less-vulgar imagery in
the future. Thank you.

Look, I don't really get why everyone thinks this is ok. I don't care if it's Trump, Gahvanka,
The Wilpons or Mother Torresa hisself. It has to stop. One poster can't just bend another
poster over the desk and do what they please because they reach some boiling point.

It's wrong.

Lefty Specialist
May 03 2018 02:04 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

A Boy Named Seo wrote:

yah I agree the people who hired her maybe should have watched her comedy before. That in itself is kind of hilarious. But I don't think her set or her comedy was the point of the event, even though it's certainly grabbed 1000% of the attention. It was 20 minutes out of an hours-long fundraiser meant to celebrate and advance journalism and... the first amendment.

And can we be real for one second? Sarah Sanders does lie her ass off every day on that podium. Kelly Anne invented something called "alternative facts" for crissakes. And if these jokes felt like vicious attacks, then maybe they cut a little close to the truth.


Egg-zackly. You want sunny, light, upbeat Kumbaya comedy, you don't hire Lewis Black. Or Michelle Wolf. They should have seen this coming.

MFS62
May 03 2018 02:09 PM
Re: Michelle Wolf

Lefty Specialist wrote:
A Boy Named Seo wrote:

yah I agree the people who hired her maybe should have watched her comedy before. That in itself is kind of hilarious. But I don't think her set or her comedy was the point of the event, even though it's certainly grabbed 1000% of the attention. It was 20 minutes out of an hours-long fundraiser meant to celebrate and advance journalism and... the first amendment.

And can we be real for one second? Sarah Sanders does lie her ass off every day on that podium. Kelly Anne invented something called "alternative facts" for crissakes. And if these jokes felt like vicious attacks, then maybe they cut a little close to the truth.


Egg-zackly. You want sunny, light, upbeat Kumbaya comedy, you don't hire Lewis Black. Or Michelle Wolf. They should have seen this coming.

The first one I remember really burning the President was when Don Imus hosted and Bill Clinton was there and heard the Monica jokes. But he was there, and not only took it like a man, but even laughed at some of them.

Later