Can the Correspondents Dinner Be Made Relavant Again?

Here's Tom Brokaw and RUsh on the subject:

BROKAW: I was out on the road when the White House Correspondents Dinner popped up again. And I looked at C-SPAN coverage and read all the accounts of it. And if there's ever an event that separates the press from the people that they're supposed to serve, symbolically, it is that one. It is time to rethink it. George Clooney's a great guy. I'd like to meet Charlize Theron. But I don't think the big press event in Washington should be that glittering event where the whole talk is about Cristal Campaign taking over the Italian Embassy, who had the best party, who got to meet the most people. That's another separation between what we're supposed to be doing and what the people expect us to be doing, and I think the Washington press corps has to look at that.

RUSH: Hmm. Hmm. Yeah, I'll do my best at explaining it. When I first heard about this, I started asking myself, "What was the White House correspondents dinner like when Brokaw was the anchor of the Nightly News and went to it?" I don't know. Well, I do know, actually. It wasn't what it is today. It was not Washington's version of the Academy Awards without the awards. It was black tie, but the tradition was the president showed up and made fun of himself.

It was a self-deprecating night. The president made fun of himself. It was where the press that covers the president, they just had a... I'll tell you when the change happened. I know exactly when the change happened. It started between 1988 and 1990, when the media's monopoly blew up and when the media started openly taking sides rather than hiding the fact that they were taking sides. When it became obvious that the media was itself involved in the ideological battle and not just covering it, the event changed.

And that's when it became necessary for your allies to show up with you -- and the more glittering and the more famous, the better -- and once they started inviting outside celebrities to the thing, then the cocktail parties began, 'cause those people have to be entertained. I mean, after all, they call it "the nerd prom" for a reason. So if you're asking the Hollywood glitterati (which is the top of the show biz ladder) to show up with people near the bottom rung of it, you'd better have something for the top rung people to have fun doing rather than just listen to political speeches.

So you bring 'em in, and you have the pre-parties and the post-parties all to entertain the guests that show up and make it an attractive event for these glitterati guests to accept the invitations. And then the fact that Clooney and people like that are there is supposed to add credibility and glitter to the people in the trenches fighting the ideology war -- the media, the reporters, the anchors and so forth -- which makes them appear bigger. And so sides were chosen even more. And then they can't became was the room is 80% Hollywood and Washington/New York media, 20% conservative circus acts who show up to be laughed at and made fun of, all for the purpose of serving this tradition.