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The Screaming Moderate

Of Correspondents' dinners and the NBA

5/2/2014

1 Comment

 
PictureCorrespondents' dinner at the DC Hilton
It's another White House Correspondents Association Dinner weekend!! The glitterati are arriving in town. The parties have begun. The bold-faced names are inhabiting restaurants and hotels. And, you might even find an ink-stained wretch among the guests....just not as many as some years ago. The bold-faced types are taking up more seats, which means fewer for the reporters.

But, that's okay as long as Lindsey Lohan can get a seat! Personally, I'm okay with Lupita attending because, if I actually was in attendance, I would like to see her.  I don't oppose celebrities attending the dinner (not that I have any say) but I have a problem with so many attending. Years ago, the only celebrity was the guest comic. Now it's Lindsay, Gaga and whoever finished 4th on American Idol five years ago. And a red carpet! Are you kidding me?? A red carpet? For a journalist dinner? They are oh-so-important. Then again, you see few journalists walking the red carpet. That's for the celebs, and Wolf Blitzer.

Anyway, it's good celeb-watching in the District the next few days. You may be eating at Cafe Milano and, if you can score a table this weekend, you might look and see sitting next to you the vice president -- Kevin Spacey.

On an unrelated topic. kudos to new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver for swift, just and decisive action against soon-to-be-ex Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling for his racist comments in a private conversation with his ex-girlfriend who, if you look up gold-digger in the dictionary, you can see her picture.

For all those yelling "First Amendment, First Amendment," please remember the government isn't restricting Sterling's speech. He, of his own free will and $13 or so million dollars, bought an NBA team and agreed to the rules of the league for his conduct. While "thou shalt not be a racist" isn't a specific rule, it certainly is an expectation, especially since slavery ended years ago, racial prejudice is against the law in hiring and employing, and, well, let's just say it -- racism is wrong, people.

So, Adam  Silver did the right thing. He did it quickly and after speaking with the accused and others. And, along with the fine and the ban for  life, Commissioner Silver is asking the league's other owners to force Mr. Sterling to sell the team. For the record, that $13 or so million Sterling paid for the team many years ago, will garner him a profit of about $1 billion!! So, not such a hardship.

And for a guy who has been accused of prejudice before, both with his team and in the housing projects he's owned, not much of a reputation hit either, since he's earned that over his 80-year lifetime.


1 Comment
Roger Bolton
5/2/2014 01:04:46 pm

Right (I mean moderate) as usual, B. Jay.

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    B. Jay Cooper

    B. Jay is a former deputy White House press secretary to Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He also headed the communications offices at the Republican National Committee, U.S. Department of Commerce, and Yale University. He is a former reporter and is the retired deputy managing director of APCO Worldwide's Washington, D.C., office.
    He is the father of three daughters and grandfather of five boys and one girl. He lives in Marion, Mass.

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