Another comedian has come to the defense of the featured entertainment at this year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
ABC’s own late night host Jimmy Kimmel followed the back and forth debate among journalists and other comedians on Twitter in response to The Daily Show writer and stand-up comic Michelle Wolf’s roast of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, among other prime political targets on both sides of the aisle, at the dinner.
With female reporters and TV news anchors accusing Wolf of crude insensitivity with jokes that they claimed leaned too heavily on Sander’s physical appearance, Wolf and her defenders, both journalists and other comedians including Kathy Griffin and Kumail Nanjiani, pointed to the White House Press Secretary’s predilection for replacing facts with a manure-like substance from a male cow as the primary subject of her barbs.
Kimmel joined the debate by reminding the members of the White House press corps of the reason behind the dinner in the first place and what their alternative forms of entertainment could be.
Dear "the media" – @michelleisawolf was FUNNY. Hire a juggler next year.
— Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) April 29, 2018
A keen observer of the comedic legacy of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, Kimmel cemented his credentials as a humor critic as well as a comedian with his assessment of this year’s star attraction at the event and offered a suggestion of how the less appreciative, politically correct attendees could entertain themselves next year if their level of offense grows too great.
Unfortunately for journalists, jugglers don’t usually generate as much in the way of morning-after headlines to help fill their pages and airwaves after the dinner as comedians do. Perhaps the more sensitive members of the media should consider that side benefit of their entertainment before switching to circus acts as a replacement.
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