The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, usually a trove of good humor between the president and the fourth estate, dripped far too much Buttermilk Green Goddess dressing into the salad of cuts, jabs, and jibes. Worse, the manic sarcasm of the Roaster-in-Chief, Cicely Strong, left many in the audience wishing for an episode of South Park.
Oh, there were a few good lines from President Obama, and he respectfully—and wisely—paid tribute to journalism’s fallen. In the CNN pre-show, Ms. Strong’s pals mentioned several times that she was only the fourth woman enlisted as the WHCA Dinner’s “Entertainer.”
She opened her monologue with the most telling one-liner of all. It went something like: “It seems somehow right that a woman follows President Obama, doesn’t it?” Later, for audience participation, she made the journalists present raise their right hands and swear they will no longer comment on Hillary’s appearance.
Why there was so much emphasis on Ms. Strong’s gender (or Mrs. Clinton’s) is not certain, especially when it seems so obvious. As someone who investigated EEO complaints in the 1970s, the left’s drumbeat reminds me of those federal executives who prided themselves for having an African-American in the office (Coordinator) or a woman somewhere in fledging management (Administrative Assistant). They crossed the to-dos off their list even if the people they hurried to appoint weren’t always the best qualified. Everybody knew it. Like there were no smart, black women around?
The Bucket List our nation needs to shred is not the one referred to by the president (Do something about immigration? “Bucket,” he said.) The checklist I’m talking about is the one that’s developed by the left within the past decade. It seems to say that at every opportunity, we must, lemming-like, elect someone to the presidency from a category we’ve never had before. It also smacks of cynical marketeering: A periodic change in packaging only.
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It was pretty obvious in 2008, wasn’t it? Did we—as a nation—vote for a candidate who embodied the political philosophy shared by most of us? Did he present himself with a drop-dead, overpowering CV that told us we couldn’t do any better? Of course not. For the nearly 100% of African-Americans, joined by sufficient numbers from every other demographic, including women, indies, progressives, RINOs, electing a black man was somehow another payment on some sort of perceived national debt to people of color. One off the checklist. There’s not enough space to itemize the national cost for that rationale.
Now, for an election but eighteen months away, Ms. Strong suggests it’s only natural a woman “follow” Mr. Obama. She wouldn’t claim to have been joking, would she? Ms. Strong is only the latest in a string of public and private persons—from the same demographics outlined above—to intimate the same.
What highlights the hypocrisy in full relief is that we’ve heard not one marketeer from the left suggest it could also be “time” for someone with a Hispanic heritage. Should a Rubio or a Cruz think one of them is “next” on the bucket list? (Can you imagine the dilemma if a Rubio or a Cruz were an ambitious Democrat this season?) Is it not time to call this agenda what it is: a most cynical candy of idealism coating just another filling of racism or sexism?
In the precarious world in which the U.S. presently finds itself—militarily, diplomatically, and economically—should the rest of us not ask—demand?—that the unwitting racists and sexists amongst us put aside their slavish devotion to a bucket list long enough to consider the only question to matter on November 8, 2016? Who is the best person best able to serve, protect, and defend us, preserving our Constitution?
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