Holy Crap. The White House Correspondents Association President Just APOLOGIZED!

According to this, Margaret Talev, the current president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, has released a formal apology to the members of the association (and to everyone, really, by publicizing the letter.)  It reads as follows:

Dear Members:

I want to tell you how much your kind words meant to me following my personal remarks at last night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner about the roots of my belief in journalism’s essential role.

I have also heard from members expressing dismay with the entertainer’s monologue and concerns about how it reflects on our mission. Oliver Knox, who will take over this summer as our president, and I, recognize these concerns and are committed to hearing from members on your views on the format of the dinner going forward. Last night’s program was meant to offer a unifying message about our common commitment to a vigorous and free press while honoring civility, great reporting and scholarship winners, not to divide people. Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of the mission.Every day we are working hard to advocate for our members and ensure coverage that benefits the public, and the dinner is an important opportunity to highlight and maintain our essential work. The White House Correspondents’ Association remains dedicated to that mission.

Margaret Talev

I gotta tell you, I’m pleasantly surprised by this, if only because it means that enough journalists who are members of the association complained about Michelle Wolf’s “performance” that it elicited this response.  I mean, that’s good, right?  That there are decent people in that organization who thought that Wolf’s version of “entertainment” was worthy of scorn?  I feel like that’s a positive.

What was Michelle Wolf’s response to the apology from Talev?  A photo of herself smiling on Instagram, with the caption, “Not in the spirit of the mission.”

Not in the spirit of the mission.

A post shared by Michelle Wolf (@michelleisawolf) on Apr 29, 2018 at 9:52pm PDT

Listen – we’re all for the first amendment, and we’re all for comedians not being restricted from being able to say whatever they wanna say, and we’re all for political incorrectness. That said, she was objectively terrible, and clearly not what the WHCA was looking for in order to help restore its image. And we’re all for the WHCA making a statement about that.

Michelle Wolf is going to have her Netflix special and she’s gained hundreds of thousands of new followers since appearing at the WHCD Saturday night. She’s going to reap the benefits of this “performance” as long as she can, and there are enough sick freaks out there that her 15 minutes will probably extend into several hours. That’s America.

But I’m glad this rebuke happened. Because that’s America too.