By Dave Andrusko
Michelle Wolf
Photo by Erin Nekervis
Let’s pick up where we left off yesterday, discussing the media response to Michelle Wolf’s reprehensible performance at Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Washington, D.C. That most assuredly will include another look at her disgusting comments about abortion.
In a minute we’ll talk about Cecile Richards’ response (very interesting, by the way) to Wolf’s remarks.
The Washington Post is, of course, as Establishment Media as you can possibly get. In their reaction to Wolf, if you could giggle in cyberspace, they would have.
Interestingly former Post writer Chris Cillizza tried to have it both ways. Writing for CNN, he gave Wolf kudos for various attacks; asked how anyone could “celebrate abortion — even jokingly”; and pointed out that Wolf “couldn’t buy better publicity” for her forthcoming Netflix series, “The Break With Michelle Wolf.”
Not so with his former colleagues. They celebrated Wolf’s foul-mouthed race to the bottom as she verbally gouged the President, his family, Vice President Pence, Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, to name just a few.
The Posties loved that Wolf tore into the President whom they collectively loathe. Besides, can’t they take a joke?
A lot of attention was paid to Wolf’s very personal attack on Sanders. Defenders of Wolf insist, in that respect, she was misunderstood. (Which is preposterous but….)
However there was no mistaking the animosity of Wolf’s remarks about Mr. Pence. They were stupendously offensive on many different levels. She said
Mike Pence is very anti-choice. He thinks abortion is murder, which, first of all, don’t knock it till you try it. And when you do try it, really knock it. You know, you’ve got to get that baby out of there.
And yeah, sure, you can groan all you want. I know a lot of you are very anti-abortion, you know, unless it’s the one you got from your secret mistress. It’s fun how values can waver, but good for you.
In a prior story Post media reporter Paul Farhi congratulated Wolf for livening up what was a snooze fest before her appearance. But in a story he wrote for today’s Post it’s clear while the staff was in seventh heaven over Wolf’s take-no-prisoners attack, the higher ups apparently have some concerns
[S]everal news organizations indicated their support next year [for the dinner] could be jeopardized if another controversial comic is hired. People involved in the discussions said executives from Politico, CBS News and The Washington Post were among those urging the change. [Underlining added.]
Cecile Richards
But what does Cecile Richards think about Wolf’s abortion comments? Richards, whose long leadership at Planned Parenthood ended Monday, appeared this morning on CNN’s “New Day.”
The headline to the CNN story about the interview written by Donald Judd, read, “Ex-Planned Parenthood leader: Wolf was ‘doing her job’ when she made abortion jokes”
Here is the two paragraph lead:
Former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards stopped short on Tuesday of criticizing Michelle Wolf over her jokes about abortion at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, though she did say it’s not “a topic that I make jokes about.”
“She’s a comedian, that was her job,” Richards told CNN’s “New Day” co-anchor Alisyn Camerota.
Richards added the obligatory caveat-abortion “isn’t a topic that I make jokes about, because, of course, I see what women face in this country just to access this care, and how much stigma and shame there already is in America”—before returning to what she really liked about Wolf’s abortion comments: that she hammered pro-life men in general, Vice President Pence in particular.
According to Judd’s story, “echoed Wolf’s point on Tuesday,” Richards said
“I think she was also making the point that a lot of the folks, male politicians in particular, who rail against access to safe and legal abortion do so until it’s something that they actually find benefits themselves.”
Richards has made a living—a very, very comfortable living—by making sure she never allows the discussion to move to what happens in an abortion, and to whom. Her response is invariable to impugn the motives of pro-lifers, as if no one could possible find it revolting that innocent unborn children are torn apart in a manner straight out of the Middle Ages.
Richards criticizing Wolf? Impossible.