Bullets and bedlam: America at its worst

I tuned up C-Span Saturday night (not my first choice for a weekend binge) with the expectation the White House Correspondents Association dinner would be darkly fascinating, like the way a multi-car crash commands attention when we rubberneck.

The very idea that the Washington press corps would actually break bread with the demagogue who’s bent on destroying them…even now, after everything that’s happened, writing those words makes me sick enough to pine for Dramamine.

But wow. What a rancid stew that was. If the writer’s room of America in Decline had ever packed so many indigestible ingredients into the same episode, the TV critics would surely have complained that it was too “on the nose.”

Before the bullets broke the evening, I was fixated on the spectacle itself. Would a firefighters convention invite an arsonist as its honored guest? Would the Fraternal Order of Police reserve a seat on the dais for a convicted criminal? The press association, which is helmed by one of Bari Weiss’ See-BS staffers, did the latter.

Then came the inherently American spasm of violence that is so inherently American. There have been 511 documented mass shootings in the last 60 years – an annual average of eight or nine – and rest assured future victims won’t have a fancy ballroom to protect them.

Within seconds the entire roomful played duck and cover – just like our school kids who face this threat on a daily basis – because nobody in power have had the slightest interest in curbing access to firearms. Nor has the press’ honored guest, who loves violence so much he impelled thousands of goons to storm the U.S. Capitol, beat up cops, and build a gallows to hang the honored guest’s veep.

Trump believes being targeted is a testament to his purported greatness. He told the press pool: “Well, you know, I’ve studied assassinations, and I must tell you, the most impactful people, the people that do the most (get shot at)… Just take a look at the names here. The big names. And I hate to say I’m honored by that, but I’ve done a lot…When you’re impactful, (shooters) go after you. When you’re not impactful, they leave you alone.”

So he feels “honored.” But his assassination study deserves a D. It’s an historical fact that Gerald Ford was not impactful, yet he was targeted twice. James Garfield was in office only four months, with no time to be impactful, when he was shot. Ronald Reagan was in office only two months when he was shot by a nut who was trying to impress Jodie Foster. But the White House press pool, for which I have some sympathy, had to sit there and listen to his nonsense because the quality of discourse has been so degraded.

Speaking of degraded: He managed to mumble one rote sentence that his aides had surely crafted, mindful of the horrors that had so recently transpired. Here it is, in its entirety: “I ask that all Americans recommit with their hearts and resolving our differences peacefully. We have to – we have to resolve our differences.”

Then, less than 24 hours later, during a quickie sitdown for “60 Minutes,” when he was asked whether there’s anything a president can do about political violence, he replied: “I do think the hate speech of the Democrats is very dangerous. I do think that the hate speech of the Democrats much more so is – is very dangerous.” That, from the guy who joked about Nancy Pelosi’s husband getting beaten with a hammer and said nothing last year when two Minnesota Democratic lawmakers were assassinated by a MAGA extremist.

Nor does the press association’s honored guest seem willing to “resolve” his “differences” with the press. When “60 Minutes” host Nora O’Donnell asked him to comment on the alleged shooter’s manifesto – which said, “I am no longer willing to permit a pedophile, rapist, and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes” – he lashed out in predictable snowflake mode:

“Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would because you’re – you’re he – you’re horrible people. Horrible people…I said to myself, ‘You know, I’ll do this interview and they’ll probably’ – I read the manifesto. You know, he’s a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself reading that…You’re a disgrace. But go ahead. Let’s finish the interview. You – you’re disgraceful.”

So there it was, a toxic trifecta: Obsequious banquet starring an unprecedented enemy of the free press, gun violence rendering the event DOA, and narcissism and nonsense in the aftermath from the unrepentant honored guest.

In the 1987 movie “Broadcast News,” the TV producer played by Holly Hunter arrives at the correspondents dinner and nears the security checkpoint. But at the last second she veers away, fearful that the inspectors will unclasp her purse and discover the condoms she’d packed for an envisioned tryst with William Hurt.

Not a gun in sight anywhere. That’s more my speed.

Copyright 2026 Dick Polman, distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate. Dick Polman, a veteran national political columnist based in Philadelphia and a Writer in Residence at the University of Pennsylvania, writes the Subject to Change newsletter. Email him at dickpolman7@gmail.com

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