Celebs join Bush for reporters' dinner (Plame/Wilson expected to attend)

[sabra]

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/nation/14461347.htm

Celebs join Bush for reporters' dinner


<SNIP>

"I will see you all tomorrow night, I guess," Bush told reporters at the White House on Friday. "Looking forward to it. I hope you are, as well."

Booked as the featured entertainer was Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report" often lampoons the Washington establishment.

...

Expected to join ABC were former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, the CIA officer at the heart of a leak investigation that has reached deep into the White House.

Others on the guest list included rapper-actor Ludacris, whose real name is Chris Bridges; James Denton, the hunky plumber on "Desperate Housewives" on ABC; "Dancing With the Stars" winner Drew Lachey; New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin; tennis player Anna Kournikova; and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger.

[Jacobin]

1. oh my, Colbert will be there?

Hope he brings his sunscreen for Gitmo.

:rofl:

[Lisa]

10. he mentioned it briefly on his Thursday show ...

I had thought he was kidding, but then it occurred to me that he had been setting up a joke, he would actually have announced it with more fanfare! I bet he is planning to do something on it next week.

[Ecumenist]

2. The presence of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame ought to

make it quite an interesting soiree. Oh, to be a fly on the wall...

[goforit]

8. My advice to this couple, is bring your own food!

Or higher a food/drink taster before every bite!

[Ecumenist]

13. AMEN, Goforit

As a matter of fact, I'm not sure I would come wearing anything else but titanium armour...

[wordpix]

23. maybe that advice is better suited for *

[Divernan]

3. Hope Plame/Wilson get standing O; didn't anyone ask Cindy?

nt

[elfin]

4. He will go all OReilly over Bush

saying how great he is for wiretapping, torturing and encourage him to nuke Iran. Maybe even coin a new work for the night - bushiness" and how it means never having to tell the "truthiness".

What time is it on?

[Ecumenist]

14. Actually, I'm kinda hoping that Joe Wilson goes

medieval on his ass. He's never had to face the consequences of his actions and it's about time he does.

[Fridays Child]

5. If they've been invited to sit at the ABC table, does this mean that...

...ABC is delivering a political slap in the face to B*sh? Would a member of the corporate media be so bold?

[stuckinlodi]

6. IIRC

This will be on CSPAN tonight. I tried the CSPAN website for confirnation but the schedule would not come up for me.

[Fridays Child]

17. Per Media Center guide, 8:00 PM EDT, 5:00 PM PDT

I've got it set to record (If I did it right).

[ovidsen]

7. This WILL be on CSPAN

(thank you stuckinlodi!)

The preview begins at 8:00pm EDT and is scheduled to last 90 minutes.

Broadcast of the dinner starts at 9:30pm EDT and is scheduled to last for an hour.

Complete schedule is here.

This is gonna be FUN!!

[stuckinlodi]

9. You're Welcome ! n/t

[PaDUer]

21. I hate to admit this, but,

I just switched to Faux, and they're going to be showing some of it..Susan Aldrich is speaking now, said Hillary raised over $100,000 last week...They also said they don't think the dem's are going to be able to win...ahh, good ole' faux, who will be saying the humble leader has things under control. And, they're talking about Iran having nukes and they're a real problem. If they get in a fight w/ the US, losing won't be a problem, and this is a terrible problem for us. Says Iran thinks the US will back down. Says US is developing weapons stronger than nuclear weapons. Saying our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will pay a major price.

[wordpix]

24. the world according to Faux with people like Shit Fume & O'Leilly giving

their constant spin.

"Saying our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren will pay a major price."
Yes, they will pay the price if the American sheeple don't wake up and stop BushCo NOW.

[otohara]

11. Good Article - Only The Privilege get WHCA Invites

The Privilege WHAT? The DC pundits who call themselves journalists and until recently have fallen all over our fearless lying leaders? The social event of the year for some of the lowest common denominators in what has become infotainment aimed at dumbing down the viewers and voters in this country.

I have a very low opinion of the press, can you tell?





The White House Correspondents Association will hold its annual dinner this weekend in Washington, and though I’ve spent the past year writing and interning down here, the gala ain’t for people like me. Or you. It is, to paraphrase how Jon Stewart put it last year, a chance for the administration and the media to put aside differences as they are both entrenched oligarchies that uphold and enforce the status quo.

“For one night, D.C. is Hollywood,” says Slate.com, who calls it the “biggest social event of the year for political Washington.”

It is tradition that the president and vice president attend the WHCA event that will wine and dine 3,000 news agency writers, members of Congress and Bush’s Cabinet. And while the night is a laid-back affair (a truce, even, I guess) for the warring White House regulars, the absurdity of the whole event is a little more apparent this year.

At $175 per seat, the WHCA dinner is really a glimpse into the weird world of Washington privilege. Journalists and bureaucrats mesh for an evening of mutual festivities and star-gazing. Comedy Central’s Steven Colbert will be the guest host for the dinner. Outed-CIA operative Valerie Plame, now something of a Beltway celebrity, will be there, too. http://www.thepenn.org/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/04/27/4450f3bdb5864

[MrPrax]

12. No live stream?

Dang...

[Voltaire99]

15. The US press pauses for self-congratulation...

After spending the past six years giving blowjobs to Bush, it's only fitting the press should take a night to give one to itself.

[Drum]

16. LOL!

[Lars39]

18. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."

[antonialee839]

19. I wonder how many reporters know Bush is preparing to prosecute

some of them as spies? Why any reporter would want to be in the same room with this piece of garbage is beyond me.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/30/washington/30leak.html?hp&ex=1146369600&en=9db240cf3f964691&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[wordpix]

25. I'm wondering which press members have the gonads to end the truce

Would love to hear Colbert and others tear up BushCo and make them crawl out of the event with their tails between their legs.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

20. Another grand old DC insider tradition that once .......

...... was a riotous affair, with no holds barred.

But, as with most things, it's lost its teeth, and now it's not much more than something resembling the weekly Elks Luncheon at the local Holiday Inn.

There won't be anything interesting, no one will take any chances, Laura maybe will do a canned routine so stupid as to be embarrassing to everyone, Fuckface will make an equally stupid response, he'll be roundly applauded as if he'd just delivered the funniest monologue ever because these "press corps" are suckups extraordinaire, everyone will be all dressed up and feeling very special, and Steven Colbert - bless his heart - will have done something he's never done before.

The old ones - when they didn't allow outside coverage (!) - were, I heard from the oldtimers, wild-ass parties that were ribald, boundary-free, and the President sometimes even learned something, maybe because no one was watching. Of course, Fuckface is untrainable, so there goes THAT idea ............

Just look at the guest list. What a joke. It looks like a bad TV award show.

Oh, what I'd give for a press corps with a spine and some teeth and courage..........

[ovidsen]

26. You are so right

I went to a couple of these things in the 1980s. They were much more "off the record" then, although the big shot news organizations, then as now, always tried to get somebody outrageous at their tables. I give ABC two points for grabbing Mr. and Mrs. Wilson this evening.

As you watch on TV, marvel at the skill of the expertly trained waitperson staff at the Washington Hilton who will manage to feed thousands of rubber chicken dinners (which really weren't bad!) along with wine, coffee and dessert to the assembled throng in an amazingly short time!

It is by far the most efficient operation in Washington.

[Miss Chybil]

22. I really don't get politics. It's the "strange bedfellow" thing that

always throws me.

[OldLeftieLawyer]

27. It was never supposed to be like this

The Washington Press Corps has turned into a bunch of full-times fellatrices - with certain exceptions, of course (Helen Thomas, of course) - with nothing more than knee pads where their souls and spines should have been.

They're not journalists - they're entertainers, and they'll do anything to get and stay near powerful people, believing, as they obviously do, that ingesting the bodily fluids of the elected powerfuls will somehow get them some power of their own.

They, more than anyone else, I hold accountable for all the bullshit that Fuckface has gotten away with during his time squatting illegally in the Oval Office.

Suck-ups.