About a month ago I ordered, from Amazon, “Trump’s First 100 Days” 2077-piece puzzle. Can’t be certain, but I don’t believe it was a complete set. (I’m not putting all the onus on Jeff Bezos’ flagship enterprise; probably the manufacturer’s error, just like when Andrew Porter’s new novel The Imagined Life arrived and after I got page 55, it skipped to 184, inexcusable in all cases, but especially from the House of Alfred A. Knopf.) There are worse burdens to bear, and maybe my request for the missing puzzle pieces will arrive sometime in June. That’s just as well, since as a curious punter—that’s for Keir Starmer, the British PM who’s the envy of the world with his audacious leadership in the UK—I’ll continue to rely on my betters who rattle and hum at publications in New York and Washington.
Last week, as a Christian, I allowed that (apparently) New York Times lifer David Brooks’ call for an American uprising against Trump was an unconscious parody, whether the result of too many organic mushrooms or his knee-jerk self-aggrandizement. I made a joke about Brooks and his well-educated peers attending soirees at the home of Times White House correspondent Peter Baker and his wife—pardon, “partner”—Susan Glasser, who whips out “Letter From Trump’s Washington” for The New Yorker. (You know the state of this country’s top-echelon media’s in bad shape when longtime readers suffer a pang of nostalgia for Elizabeth Drew’s “Comment,” the dated, laughably dull dispatch that was eliminated once pre-Talk/Daily Beast personality Tina Brown took over as the magazine’s editor.)
Right on cue, Glasser’s latest anti-Trump propaganda (that’s what’s so hard about the above-mentioned puzzle; Trump’s own propaganda meshes with that of the “elite” media, but it’s a stalemate, two warring parties talking to their “bases” and making little sense) did a Debbie Gibson on me and lit up, if not my life, at least my “firing on all cylinders” synapses. She wrote, on April 24th, “This week in Washington, the rare convergence of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and White House Correspondents’ dinner has been an event planner’s nightmare—part party gridlock, part panel-discussion overload—and a networker’s fever dream. This is, after all, a city where tidbits of access, insight, and actionable information are as prized as hard currency.”
Glasser’s writing in a lingua franca (I’m fancy!) that’s as dead as Latin to 99 percent of the country, but I don’t suppose she, “partner” Peter Baker, David Brooks or New Yorker editor David Remnick, if you’ll excuse the “barnyard epithet” (two words that once again conjured up Elizabeth Drew), give a shit. They write for Democratic Party friends (but not failed-influencer David Hogg, who’s just too far off the reservation, perhaps with a bag of illicit wampum), select #NeverTrump courtiers who’re beloved for “rapier wit” and the suckers who continue to pay their extravagant salaries so they can ruminate about the middle- and lower-classes with no conflict of interest. Hand me a Tootsie Roll! Cracked myself up again with that last one, a transgression that’ll result in the self-imposed loss of my weekly corned beef sandwich.
Still, the question remains: what’s an event planner to do?
I didn’t watch C-SPAN’s coverage of the White House Correspondents’ dinner (never do) but judging by a Times two-byline report, it was a gloomy night. A snippet: “The reporters who spoke from the dais emphasized the importance of the First Amendment, garnering repeated ovations from the black-tie crowd.” Hope those tuxedos weren’t stained from drowning-in-sorrow tumblers of imported whiskey. The media’s “I’m Available For Comment” Jim VandeHei was quoted: “No president attending, no comedian to make fun of all of us, TV networks buckling under government pressure, a top producer quitting over corporate interference and the public sour on the media and government. Enjoy the weekend!”
I’m rash enough to say that’s pretend gallows humor, since the WCHA attendees and guests are well-heeled enough that to them it doesn’t really matter what Trump does or doesn’t do, but I did like VandeHei’s admission that the public’s “sour” about “the media and government.” And like the sort-of-lamented Elizabeth Drew, that reminds me of the expression, “That’s a [Michael] Kinsley gaffe!” Save that one for later, champs.
The picture above is of my son Booker in our Manhattan apartment years ago, undoubtedly taking a time trip with Mr. Peabody and Sherman, and wondering what’s going on in 2025. I’d ask if he found the missing puzzle pieces, but that’s “above my pay grade.”
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Jeff Bezos is Time’s “Person of the Year”; John Elway is the Super Bowl’s MVP; current baseball “color” commentator (and a very good one) David Cone pitches a perfect game on Yogi Berra Day at Yankee Stadium; Hamilton Tiger-Cats win Canada’s Grey Cup; Australia defeats Pakistan in the Cricket World Cup Final; DIY Network is launched; Mikey Madison is born and Huntz Hall dies; the last NYC Checker cab is put on the shelf and auctioned off for $135,000; the final game is played at Tiger Stadium; and David Mamet’s Boston Marriage and Jonathan Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn are published.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023