One of the things that has made the American press great has been the lack of prior restraint censorship on what’s written. The White House Correspondents Association dinner has in recent years reflected this freewheeling nature, by hiring entertainers who pushed the envelope:
Radio host Don Imus got just a wee bit too personal for President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton a few years ago. And then last year there was Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert, doing his take off of Bill O’Reilly with barbs aimed at President George W. Bush who was sitting right next to him. It was a big controversy: liberals loved it, conservatives detested it and Mr. and Mrs. George Bush were reportedly furious (Many thought the REAL Bill O’Reilly would have been funnier…)
A tradition? No more. Because a series of news reports have made it known that this year a decision was apparently made: do NOT bring in someone who will offend the President and his supporters.
So they opted for a veteran, solid variety show and Vegas entertainer…but one who cannot be confused with either a controversial morning radio talk show host with a cowboy hat, or a Comedy Central early-21st-century comedian who is heavy on irony and less heavy on traditional one-liners.
This year the entertainment will be….Rich Little (who I loved on the Ed Sullivan Show which went off TV some 30 years ago). But that is not the problem. The problem, as this post by Attytood reports, is that Little has apparently been INSTRUCTED by his client reporters NOT to offend the political sensibilities of Mr. Bush and his supporters:
When we saw earlier this week that the WHCA had chosen Rich Little — who we used to watch imitate Richard Nixon and Bob Hope on Johnny Carson in the early 1970s, if we were allowed to stay up that late — to follow last year’s ruckus over in-your-face funny Stephen Colbert as the main entertainer, we were willing to let it go.
But then we read this….The cowardice of these people — who sat there on mute for months while the president made plans to start a war under false pretenses — is astounding. Little now says he has an understanding not to bash Bush or mention the war:
Little said organizers of the event made it clear they don’t want a repeat of last year’s controversial appearance by Stephen Colbert, whose searing satire of President Bush and the White House press corps fell flat and apparently touched too many nerves.
“They got a lot of letters,” Little said Tuesday. “I won’t even mention the word ‘Iraq.'”
Little, who hasn’t been to the White House since he was a favorite of the Reagan administration, said he’ll stick with his usual schtick — the impersonations of the past six presidents.
“They don’t want anyone knocking the president. He’s really over the coals right now, and he’s worried about his legacy,” added Little, a longtime Las Vegas resident.
Attytood rightfully suggests that this is, in effect, censorship…from the press corps and writes: “We won’t belabor the point, because it’s too obvious, but America desperately needs a press corps that’s more eager to offend the White House, not less eager. It was funny when Basil Fawlty said “don’t mention the war.”
OUR THOUGHTS:
(1) Rich Little is an excellent entertainer with a very solid resume. He has been pleasing audiences for years. Some of Colbert’s fans in particular, will blast Little because he is Rich Little. That’s unfair. And aside from being a “trouper” who has been a hit with a variety of audiences, he is to be commended in his role as the spokesman for the Juvenile Diabetes Association.
(2) Entertainers are often told “be careful not to mention such and such.” I’ve been told “be careful not to make fat jokes” (the client’s wife was fat). At a gig at a restaurant in San Diego that my friends on the San Diego Union-Tribune used to insist was connected with organized crime, the client told me “We’re all in the liquor distribution business…” when I walked in. He stated his ethnicity and I asked: “Should I make some jokes about that?” The guy with a neck the size of a football field smiled and said: “Sure. If you don’t want to live.”
(3) The message Little got indicated that his clients view themselves as hosts and part of the Washington establishment and not as people who believe someone can survive some satirical jokes or barbs about the 800 lb. gorilla that will be in that room that night: Bush’s problems in office and the Iraq war.
(4) So Jay Leno, David Letterman and Jon Stewart can poke fun at George Bush and the war. Mad Magazine can, too. But George Bush and his associates cannot survive getting into their ears a joke that suggests a form of anything less than endearment or neutrality or their heads will explode. We will not offend..
This suggests a shift in the White House press corps, or at least those who’ve organized the event’s (previously “cutting-edge”) entertainment.
PS: If the administration ever tries to stop a story that any of these folks that are saying, remind them. Don’t upset the White House. If Tony Snow ever goes after one of them in a manner they deem offensive, remind them. Keep Tony happy or at least not mad at you for what you write. After all, the President and Tony DO read your stories.
These are seemingly the new standards (or do they just apply to the President?). But that’s what happens when you don’t want to offend friends who belong to your club (The Washington Insiders Club). Also, just think of it: if Richard Little let an offensive joke slip, your sources might be mad at you and what would happen then?
If Rich Little got this gig and you had left him alone to decide what to put in, he might well have decided he wanted to keep it more in line with historical, traditional, broad-appeal comedy and NOT do anything that the bigwigs in power might not like. The issue is not Rich Little or what he chooses to put in his act. The issue is that the choice of what not to put in was in a polite way made FOR him.
Also, it’s so nice to see working journalists respond to their course of action so quickly due to letters. If you’re ever doing an investigative series on your newspaper and your editors get letters saying your paper should not cover it because it’s an issue that offends some readers or people in power and makes them easy, we assume the series will be pulled or edited to be offensive to no one.
Not offend the White House?
Next year, why not just hire Dennis Miller and leave it at that?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.