Prom weekend

It was an interesting weekend in Washington.

As an oil slick approached oyster beds off of New Orleans, a car bomber missed in Times Square, the water shut off in Boston and thousands of friends of illegal immigrants protested a law targeting illegal immigrants in Phoenix, Hollywood invaded the nation’s capital.

Hollywood takes seriously its frivolity, while Washington often treats frivolously serious matters like war and peace. This past weekend, when so many Hollywood stars make their way to Washington for the White House Correspondents’ dinner, has become a perfect storm of frivolity and seriousness, all intersecting in a furious vortex of brunches, pre-parties, after-parties and after-after-party brunches.

I only went to one brunch and one after-party, but reading the guest lists from the other parties, I am stunned by the stamina of the folks who not only attended the two parties that I went to but also attended almost every other party.

What is most interesting is the cult of the media personality celebrity. Reporters whose day job is to report the news have now all become celebrities on a par with Kim Kardashian and Tim Daly. Now, if you can tell me who Kim Kardashian or Tim Daly is and why a reporter would want to be put on the same pedestal as these B-list celebrities, you win the prize.

The Jonas brothers were offended that the president implied that somehow they were child molesters. That indeed would be offensive. But a bigger question: Who are the Jonas brothers, and why is the president talking about them in the first place?

By all accounts, the president was funny and Jay Leno was not funny at the big dinner. I have that secondhand, because I didn’t go to the dinner and I didn’t watch the rerun on television. I would rather have a president who wasn’t funny and a comedian who was. Maybe Leno should be the president and Obama should take the “Late Night” job.

Obama made a joke about John McCain and the problem with the Arizona immigration law. Republicans didn’t think that joke was very funny, because let’s face it, there is not much to laugh about when you consider that Arizona now has more kidnappings than any other state in the union. I am sure all of those protesters who are now declaring Arizona the natural successor to the Third Reich (Your papers, please!) don’t think the situation is very funny either.

That Washington is completely out of touch with the concerns and the troubles that are facing the rest of America really becomes clear during prom weekend.

It is fun to party like a rock star (or like KC and the Sunshine Band, who played at the MSNBC after-party on Saturday night), but for many of these politicians, this election season is not going to be much of a party. Drink up while you can, folks. This party is going to come to a crashing end come November.

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