Dick Polman: The Washington press corps’ collaboration with fascism |
Here’s a question for you: If the Fraternal Order of Police were to plan a banquet, would it ever decide to invite, as its keynote speaker, someone who by definition defies law enforcement? In other words, a convicted felon.
No way. And yet the collaborationist leaders of the White House Correspondents Association decided to invite, as its keynote speaker last Friday night, someone who loathes independent journalism, a pathological liar who rapes factual reality. And who’s a convicted felon.
The annual WHCA dinner has long been an insular Beltway bloat-a-thon where bejeweled and tuxedoed newspeople suck up to the newsmakers, but the ‘206 version (restaged after the April event was truncated by gunfire) was truly unique because never before had the dining journalists felt compelled to sit there in quietude and weather a full hour of free-form demagoguery – much of it aimed at them, mocking their core mission.
Nobody walked out. It was the silence of the lambs.
But the winner of the normalization sweepstakes was Jacqui Heinrich, the new WHCA president, who smilingly embraced the fascist guest of honor. No surprise there, because Jacqui works for Fox News, the propaganda outlet that shelled out $787 million in a court settlement after it was outed for amplifying Trump’s relentless lies about the 2020 election.
One outside group, the Society of........