April 1, 2007: Crossing the Line Part Deux-Gridiron Dinner

For people like me, conflicted over celebrity culture consumption, it's a great thing to have events like the Gridiron Dinner, a traditional schmooze-fest in Washington.

As Linton Weeks notes in his article Stand-Up Comity, One Night Only: At the Gridiron Dinner, a Splitting And Joining of Sides, the dinner affords a chance for journalists and politicos to literally dance around issues of import.

The seasonal Spring line-crossing trifecta in D.C. is made up of the Gridiron, the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner, and the White House Correspondents Dinner, which I've been to a few times myself. In years past, the politico two-step hasn't seemed so...well, unseemly. At least to me. But these are ugly times for a nation conflicted over the war that's costing our country $8 billion a month.

What I get out of these three dinners is simple-sanctimony! I get to feel superior. I may check out US, or spend too much time on Gawker. But at least I'm not dancing and clapping with the people who lie to me all week, spinning me around the ballroom at night, after spinning me around the briefing room all day.

I'm trying to keep the blog posts, and celebri-spiral mission, funny. The problem with sanctimony is that it's only funny if you get really sanctimonious about it. I'm not there yet, are you?

Give me time and a hitching post to get on my high horse.