I never did get to attend my high school prom. Morbidly obese and/or socially awkward kids with no driver’s license rarely get chosen and our families certainly didn’t gave the means nor desire to spring for a limo, corsage and tux even if we might have been able to wheedle and cajole some opportunistic female to take advantage of our largesse for a night and agree to be seen in public with one of us “Flushing Idiots”, as we were sneeringly labeled. Instead, we spent most of that humid June night sitting on the steps of our downtown post office making up impromptu material for an addicitive little word game pilot a few of us had seen taped shortly before called PASS THE BUCK. If nothing else, it briefly took our minds off how uncool and rejected we were, even if at the time I was one of the few who was actively expressing such feelings.
The passage of time and my subsequent opportunities to attend way cooler parties–including a couple of Emmys and Golden Globes– have elevated my self-confidence, and I’ve been able to cope more elegantly with my PASS THE BUCK experience. Alas, I confess there is a STILL a part of me that even after half a century that regrets never having had the experience that to so many cooler kids is still fondly remembered as a rite of passage, if not necessarily an opportunity to get drunk and laid.
I kinda suspect that may be why the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, an annual event known as “Nerd Prom” apparently coined with the same sort of intent as we were the “Flushing Idiots”, has been such a big deal. And this year in particular it loomed to be as big a deal as ever, as DEADLINE’s Tom Tapp reported in real time early yesterday evening:
While the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner is less star studded than in previous years, CNN’s Brian Seltzer said it’s the most crowded he’s ever seen the event. That’s most most likely due to the appearance of the night’s biggest celebrity, the president himself. After five years in office, Trump is making an appearance at the event for the first time as president. Seltzer speculated the buzz came not just from Trump’s attendance, but the drama of seeing Trump speak before an audience of reporters whom he regularly denigrates.
Given the well-heeled and generally well-groomed backgrounds of the attendees, any chance to get dolled up and pampered is typically a priority. So in spite of whatever moral conflict may have been going through the heads of the majority of those who chose to show up even knowing they were likely to be castigated and insulted worse than the Flushing Idiots ever were, the show was all set to go on. But just as the dias was getting settled in and the first course was about to be served, all of a sudden it turned into a rejected script from THE WEST WING. Per ABC NEWS’ ByChristopher Watson and Kevin Shalvey:
President Donald Trump, first lady Melania Trump and other dignitaries are safe after a shooting incident outside the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner Saturday night at the Washington, D.C., Hilton hotel. The incident took place near the main magnetometer screening area at the event, according to the Secret Service….A Secret Service agent who was wearing an armored vest was struck in the chest, President Trump said at a press briefing following the incident. The Secret Service agent suffered non life-threatening injuries, according to the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. No one else was injured in the incident.
ABC affiliate added a few more layers that made this seem instead more like a weak plot line from an episode of MADAM SECRETARY :
A photo sent out by President Donald Trump’s Truth Social account shows what’s believed to be the shooting suspect that derailed the White House correspondents dinner Saturday night. The Associated Press identified the man as 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance, California….Trump said the suspect was armed with multiple weapons before stopped by Secret Service. The president described the suspect as “sick.”
Early this morning CNN’s Karina Tsul shed a bit more light on who in bloody hell Cole Allen is:
According to public records, the suspect worked as a teacher and video game developer in Southern California. He studied engineering and is a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, according to materials shared with CNN…Carroll said the attacker appeared to be “a lone actor” and is believed to have stayed at the Washington Hilton, where the dinner took place… The suspect was armed with a shotgun, a handgun and multiple knives and “exchanged fire” with law enforcement officers when he was intercepted and taken into custody, interim Washington, DC, Police Chief Jeffery Carroll told reporters….
Hmm. A teacher. From Southern California. Checks off two tick marks for central casting at once. Cole Allen sure seemed to pull his assignment off better than Sharon Simmons did. You do remember her, no? SNOPES’ Jordan Liles reported earlier this week plenty of keen-eyed observers certainly did:
On April 13, 2026, a woman named Sharon Simmons — dressed in a red “DoorDash Grandma” T-shirt — knocked on the Oval Office’s exterior door to deliver two bags of McDonald’s food. U.S. President Donald Trump walked out of the White House to greet her, then he looked toward photographers, reporters and videographers with a smile to sarcastically joke, “This doesn’t look staged, does it?”…Following the event, online users and some news media outlets shared several claims, including that Simmons was a “maga paid prop” and “paid actor” taking part in a staged event, that she previously participated in a congressional hearing in Nevada on the topic of Trump’s budget bill, and that she misleadingly claimed to live in three states at the same time.
It’s them sorts of doubting Thomas and Teresas that have been dominating social media this morning, not buying for one second what they saw unfold last night as anything more than a continuation of the same sort of wag-the-dog deflection that this adminstration seems to be expert in. Well, after all, they did claim to produce a hit reality television series. So maybe that’s the genre we actually got on a Saturday night where no new episode of LIVE aired?
If you think that’s merely more TDS falderall, of all outlets Jeff Bezos’ WASHINGTON POST and his loyal servant Jonathan Edwards dropped some breadcrumbs that this all may have been merely a PSA:
(A) chorus of conservative officials and right-wing commentators…seized on the shooting to argue for the $400 million project…”Unfortunately, the First Lady and I had to be evacuated from the White House correspondents’ dinner alongside the President and the entire cabinet,” Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry posted on X, referring to his wife, Sharon. “This event is yet another reason that President Trump’s ballroom should be built!” Rep. Randy Fine (R-Florida) wrote: “We’d better never again hear a peep from anyone complaining about a White House ballroom.”
And in the midst of all of this was the presence of Trump bud and expert in Saturday night reality programming Dana White, who GIVE ME SPORT’s Rob Swan regaled his tabloid-addicted Brits early this morning with this observation:
UFC president Dana White…missed the UFC Vegas 116 event in Las Vegas in order to have front row seats at the dinner at the Washington Hilton in Washington D.C. The Zuffa Boxing boss was sat in front of US President Donald Trump, who was rushed off stage after shots were allegedly fired…Speaking shortly after the chaos unfolded, White described the alleged shooting as “f***ing awesome”. He said: “(Suddenly), it just started getting noisy. Tables getting flipped over, guys running in with guns and they were screaming ‘Get down.’ I didn’t get down. It was f**king awesome. I literally took every minute of it in, and it was a pretty crazy, unique experience.
Well, Nerd Prommers, sure looks like y’all got Punk’d.
In the aftermath of all of this was the Last Nerd Standing who CNN’s Brian Stelter reported gave her stamp of approval and vote of support:
White House Correspondents’ Association President Weijia Jiang said to the crowd later, “I saw all of you reporting, and that’s what we do. Thank God everybody’s safe, and thank you for coming together tonight.”
Jiang just happened to be the first reporter called on during the Trump presser–held in the JAMES BRADY room of the White House FFS–and vowed that the dinner would be rescheduled for some time in the next 30 days. You know, for the fund-raising to support all of those noble initiatives that the WHCD fees support.
Here’s a little suggestion for Jiang et al. You don’t need a “prom” to prove you’re the cool kids any more. And you don’t have to prove you’re somehow willing to further enable the most attention-enabling shitstain ever to hold any elected office. Give what you can to those causes, or insist your employers do same. And then find something else to do that night. Maybe do a little more reporting–like investigating whether or not Cole Allen was a member of a UFC-supporting organization. if not the Bulwark. As your own thoroughly unbiased leader herself said, “that’s what we do”. What you should NOT do is given any more oxygen than you’ve otherwise already given to this highly concerned and life-threatened leader. And for those of you who do want to grind his gears–literally nothing is more hurtful to him than ignoring him.
Or take a page from my history book. That silly little pilot PASS THE BUCK did eventually get on the air, albeit briefly, and a goodly number of those episodes reside on YouTube. You could always while away your evening with a spirited game or two of that with a few of your friends. Ones you’ll still have after almost 50 years like I do–not a hot date who’d quickly forget the evening ever happened. Go study up on the rules (hint: they’re complicated). Would certainly be a better use of your time than enabling another chance for that guy and his henchmen to prank us yet again.