Tag Archives: Michelle Wolf

national news

Pictures tell a graphic story of crassness

Spoiler alert. The pictures attached to this blog are offensive. I’ll concede that instantly. I apologize for them. But they do serve to speak to a hypocrisy that swirls around the criticism of a comic who delivered some offensive remarks to the White House Correspondents Dinner.

I am one of Michelle Wolf’s critics. I disliked the tone of her remarks to the correspondents dinner. I’ve made my case already, albeit to mixed reviews among those who have read them.

But I will concede as well that they were downright quaint and pale compared to what those on the other side of the political divide have said about those with whom they disagree.

Does this excuse Wolf’s monologue? No. It doesn’t. My hope would have been that she could have remained on a higher road while skewering the president and his White House staff.

Still, the hypocrisy of the indignation emanating from the right and the far right is, um, quite ironic.

Don’t you think?

entertainment news

Now the Trumpsters are angry? At Wolf’s insults?

I have stated my piece about comedian Michelle Wolf’s hideous performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Her comments were not funny; they were tasteless; they were vulgar. I switched the channel after watching it for about 10 minutes the other evening.

OK, now for the critics of Wolf’s monologue.

Most of them are conservatives and archconservatives who for whatever reason seem all too willing to give Donald John Trump a pass for his own version of humorless tastelessness and vulgarity.

Yes, these folks need to look inward as well as at their guy, the president of the United States. They need to understand that what’s unacceptable for one individual should be equally unacceptable for a critic of that individual.

Wolf’s comments were in reality no worse than many of the things that have poured forth from the president’s mouth.

High Plains Blogger was critical of Trump when he:

  • Made fun of a reporter with a serious physical disability.
  • Referred to certain female celebrities as “fat pigs.”
  • Denigrated the sacrifice of a Gold Star Family because of their Muslim faith.
  • Suggested that Sen. John McCain was a Vietnam War hero “only because he was captured” by the North Vietnamese. “I like those who aren’t captured. OK?” Trump said.
  • Poked fun at the physical appearance of several of his Republican primary opponents in 2016.

On and on it goes. I just want to make the point that I am proud to exempt High Plains Blogger from the List of Hypocrites who are newly offended by the joke spewage of a comedian while looking the other way when such nastiness comes from the president of the United States.

There. I’m out.

national news

Now it’s Trump’s turn to turn the page

The nation is still reeling — more or less — from comedian Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

She belittled in a vulgar fashion the looks of the White House press secretary, using language I won’t use on this blog.

Wolf has gotten her share of criticism, which I believe is deserved.

There is another side to this matter. It involves the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

Wolf supporters say Trump is equally guilty of flinging insults, of denigrating people’s appearance or their physical disability. He uses highly intemperate language when he tweets statements at all hours of the day and night.

I’ll ask this of the president: Why don’t you, sir, start speaking with a lot more dignity and decorum when you criticize those who oppose you?

Trump gave Wolf ammunition she thought she could use against him when she took the podium the correspondents dinner. Just maybe the president could “disarm” his critics just a bit by adopting a more civilized — and, um, presidential — manner of speaking to the issues of the day.

OK. Having said that, I am acutely aware that none of this is likely to occur. Donald J. Trump is not wired to behave in a presidential manner.

I just had to put it on the record.

national news, political news

Wolf crossed an important line of criticism

2 Comments

I’ll admit readily that I did not know who Michelle Wolf was … until Saturday night.

The comedian took the podium at the White House Correspondents Dinner and proceeded to offend a lot of Americans with her crude, profane and tasteless remarks.

I am one of those who found her to be (a) not funny and (b) oblivious to the bounds of good taste.

I addressed the unfunniness of her shtick with a blog post I published last night. I got some pushback from my social media network of friends who think Wolf merely dished out a sample of what has come from Donald J. Trump since the moment he entered the 2016 presidential campaign.

With that, I want to address briefly the serious line that Wolf crossed with her comments at the correspondents dinner.

She went where serious comics shouldn’t go. She criticized the appearance, for example, the appearance of White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who had the intestinal fortitude to sit through the entire evening of inappropriate ridicule.

Wolf also was shockingly profane, dropping at least one F-bomb that I heard (before I changed the channel). She also used a term to describe the female anatomy that used to be forbidden on national TV; see the late comic George Carlin’s legendary routine on “The Seven Words You Can’t Say on Television.”

The pushback from my social media network misses, in my view, another fundamental point. It is the tendency to go low when others go low. Why in the world couldn’t Michelle Wolf stay somewhere near the high road in criticizing presidential policies? She didn’t. She decided instead to slither straight into the gutter where Trump and many of his cronies continue to wallow.

Wolf’s comments told me plenty about her and not a damn thing new about the objects of her scorn.

Am I a “suck up” to Trump, as one of my social media friends suggests of those who are critical of Michelle Wolf’s routine? Not for an instant. I am not defending the president’s policies, or the lies that his allies tell on his behalf.

I will, however, stand behind my own view that there really are certain boundaries one shouldn’t cross when delivering political criticism. Sure, Donald Trump crosses them all the time. That doesn’t give anyone license to respond in kind.

I guess now, though, we’ll get to watch Michelle Wolf bask in her 15 minutes of fame.