The White House Correspondents’ Dinner takes plenty of heat each year for the oh, so cozy ties between elite media, politicians and Hollywood.
This year’s dinner kicked off with a video that inadvertently typified the biases that run rampant in mainstream media reportage.
The clip featured actual Vice President Joe Biden palling around with Selina Meyer, the character on the HBO comedy VEEP played by Julia Louis-Drefus. The VPs snarf down ice cream, get tattoos and growse about the WHCD.
Along the way, Biden drives a cool sports car, wears tough guy shades and sports a sleek leather jacket. We even see former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi getting her own tat, a cheeky play against her more serious image. First Lady Michelle Obama gets to playfully tweak her image as a food cop. When no one is looking, she takes a mouthful of ice cream.
And then there’s John Boehner, the Republican House Speaker, who is seen briefly but says he’s too busy for any interruptions. When the camera pulls back, we learn he’s just watching an aimless nature documentary.
Laughs are few in the five-minute clip, but for conservatives who constantly see bias in press coverage the clip was just more of the same.