The Al Smith Dinner

I've seen some reporting and videos from the annual Al Smith Dinner, a fancy event thrown by the Archdiocese of New York to raise money for charitable causes. Prominent politicians, journalists, social mavens and big spenders get together for a happy night of laughter and fellowship.

It made me angry and sad.

I have similar feelings about the White House Correspondents' Dinner (which my journalist friend Mike calls "the White House Concubines' Dinner"): are we supposed to take our country's issues seriously or not? If I'm a Republican, how can I believe that Chuck Schumer is the enemy of the people that Trump tells me he is--or if I'm a Democrat, how can I believe Donald Trump is the existential threat to our nation that Schumer tells me he is--if they both show up for an event like this sitting next to each other and yukking it up?

The Black woman in the upper left of the photo is Letitia James, attorney general of New York, who prosecuted Trump for fraud, and won. What the hell is a principled public servant doing at an event like that? How can she sit a dozen feet from a convicted felon she prosecuted? Why are they even in the same room?

And why does the Archdiocese of New York ask a convicted sex offender to headline its charity event?! Buried somewhere in there is a Catholic priest gag I don't have the stomach to unearth.

Is everything just a joke to all of them? Am I supposed to care more about the fate of the nation than Chuck Schumer does? Because that makes me feel like I'm carrying more than my share of the load, Chuck.

At least former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, in the foreground, had the grace to maintain a sour stone-faced expression throughout.  

Also on the dais was comedian Jim Gaffigan, who MCed the event. I like Gaffigan and think he did a tough job about as well as he could have. However, he made quite a few jokes about Kamala Harris not bothering to attend. Instead she sent a pre-recorded video that, unlike Trump's unhinged stream of juvenile insults, was both funny and relevant to the point of raising money for charity. 

As far as I'm concerned, it's to Harris's great credit that she didn't show. She's the only person who came out of the Al Smith Dinner not covered in hypocritical slime. 

Maybe there was a time, back in something like the Eisenhower era, when Republicans, Democrats, journalists and titans of industry could get together, leave politics at the door, and share a little good-natured public roasting at each others expense. Not any more. The Al Smith and White House Correspondents' dinners belong in the past. Don't tell me your opposition is destroying the country (in whatever direction of the right-left-press triad you lean) and then spend an evening backslapping like warm colleagues. Not if you want me to take you seriously the next day.