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4/29/12

Freedom comes to dinner

The White House Correspondents' Dinner  can  be pain  in the rear, with its  smug, self-congratulatory preening by politicians, journos and comedians,  the endless in-jokes, the irrelevant  celebs (why Lindsay Lohan, for heaven's sake?) But irritating as it can be, it is powerful on another level. It celebrates a  healthy  public  skepticism towards those in power.  Try to imagine Muamar Gaddafi, Hitler, Stalin  or  Mamhoud Ahmedinehjad standing before an audience  and making jokes about  themselves. Not gonna happen.  Tyrants have no sense of humor. Thank God we still do.