Howard Kurtz: Michelle Wolf was vile and nasty
Fox News media analyst says the comedian's jokes were a huge embarrassment for the White House Correspondents' Association.
Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner was nothing short of a flop, after the “entertainment” for the evening, Michelle Wolf, took a dive into the gutter. Rather than being entertaining, Wolf chose to use the national stage to tear down Sarah Sanders with degrading, vile “jokes” about her looks and her professional competence.
Wolf brazenly threw cutting insults at Sanders’ appearance and at how she performs her job with her sitting just a few feet away. She clearly had an agenda to create shock value while trying to embarrass and humiliate Sanders.
What she didn’t count on, however, was making other people in the room uncomfortable. Her jokes flopped with many in the audience. Face it, it doesn’t matter if you’re 15 or 35, being a mean girl just isn’t funny.
One of the strongest statements came from Politico’s Tim Alberta, who tweeted “Every caricature thrust upon the national press—that we are culturally elitist, professionally incestuous, socioeconomically detached and ideologically biased—is confirmed by this trainwreck of an event. Journalists, the joke’s on us. The WHCD is broken. Fix it or end it.”
Associated Press reporter Meg Kinnard tweeted “Some of the jokes were funny. Making fun of women for their looks is not. Ever. Under any circumstance."
One thing is for sure, this modern day left-wing feminism is no ya-ya sisterhood.
Also on Twitter, Yahoo! News reporter Jon Ward tweeted that Wolf’s act was a political gift to the president. Perhaps, but on behalf of women who support this president, that’s a gift they can keep.
No political “gift” is worth watching another woman be degraded.
President Trump has at least two more years left in office, and likely another four after that if he gets reelected. It’s in both the media’s and the White House’s interest to have a cooperative, professional relationship.
Sanders attending the dinner, seated at the head table, was a sign that she wants a good working relationship with the press, in spite of the fact that many in the media are hostile to her, and intent on seeing the president she speaks for fail. However, after Saturday night, nobody would blame her if she went home and burned the olive branch she was extending.
It should be an embarrassment to the Association that their dinner, which once upon a time was known for roasting politicians and their operatives in good fun, took such an ugly, vile turn.
We hear all about empowering and championing women, particularly from the card-carrying feminists on the left. However, when given the chance to do just that, people like Wolf use the large platform they’re given to instead bully other women.
Female empowerment.
For the last year and a half, they haven’t missed an opportunity to attack every strong, capable woman this administration has put in a high-profile position. When women start going after other women’s looks and tearing them down in the national spotlight, doesn’t that set us back decades?
Women have fought for years to be taken just as seriously as men. We’ve fought for the same jobs as men, and we want to be judged on our abilities and not our appearance.
Now a woman is in charge of the White House press office, women are in cabinet positions, and in key senior advisor roles in the West Wing, and, who is it that’s judging our appearance? Other women - women like Wolf.
This didn’t just start with Wolf. We’ve seen this same bullying from other women like Chelsea Handler, Cher, and Rosie O’Donnell who targeted Sanders with personal, vicious, middle school attacks. It’s no wonder the American people no longer take their cues from Hollywood and have lost faith in the media.
On Twitter some women defended Wolf’s personal attacks on Sanders, including Samhita Mukhopadhyay, the Executive Editor of Teen Vogue, tweeting, “This defense of Sarah Huckabee Sanders by prominent women is appalling and misguided. The point of WHCD is to drag the current administration and it's not Michelle Wolf's fault the jokes were a little too on the nose.”
How comforting is it that the woman in charge of running the magazine that molds young girls’ minds thinks there is nothing wrong with attacking and degrading another woman’s personal appearance?
Also supporting Wolf on Twitter was Kathy Griffin - the so-called comedienne who infamously posed in arguably the most tasteless fashion in attacking the president - claiming that it was just a roast.
One thing is for sure, this modern day left-wing feminism is no ya-ya sisterhood.
Sarah Sanders is the White House press secretary the mainstream media loves to hate, Hollywood loves to mock, and ultra-left feminists abhor, which tells you that she’s doing something right.
She is a highly intelligent and articulate woman who day after day we watch call the media on the carpet, weed out their games, deal in facts, and maintain complete control of the briefing room at all times. All this while the media is in meltdown mode because they can’t seem to shake her.
America saw Sanders react Saturday night with dignity, class, and the way we always see her react - she was not shaken.
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