Losing My Dinner

For those who wondered when the American mainstream media establishment would finally collapse into irrelevance, the suspense ended with the rescheduled 2025 White House Correspondents' Association dinner this past weekend. 

I can't think of a more disgusting sight in recent memory than Trump donning a "TRUMP 2028" ball cap while giving a monumentally incoherent speech even for him and announcing his fourth presidential candidacy for 2028 despite the fact that he's term-limited.  Members of the White House press corps actually laughed - not at Trump but with him, as if the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution never mattered.  Trump further undistinguished himself with insults directed toward Kaitlan Collins, who had just won an award for her reporting.  As Collins has become famous for holding Trump to account, Trump was eager to bring her down a few notches for insulting her appearance.

She happens to be a beautiful woman.  But, as I learned when I had to shut down my beautiful-women picture blog, that shouldn't matter.

What really made me want to throw up was the behavior of Kristen Welker.  I have already discussed Welker disappointing me and later disgusting me with her acquiescence toward Trump, both before and after the presidential election that forced Kamala Harris into early retirement; Welker, like Collins, started out dealing with Trump nonchalantly and letting him control the narrative.  But while Collins was able to transcend her own supplication and emerge as one of CNN's most fearless reporters, Welker has become an unbearable NBC stooge in the tradition of Chuckles the Clown (formerly Chuck Todd), her predecessor as the moderator of "Meet the Press."  But all of her journalistic crimes before this past weekend are minor compared to what she did at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner.

Welker was actually caught on camera talking to - and laughing it up with - Stephen Miller.    

Stephen . . . Miller.

Stephen Miller, the fascist Trump aide who has thrown migrants in jail for trying to seek shelter in the U.S. and . . . for being brown.  The fascist Trump aide who thinks that people who look like Kristen Welker shouldn't be in this country, and who has his job because Trump was voted back in by people who think biracial people like Kristen Welker - born to a white father and a black mother - are a mistake.  That Stephen Miller.  Not Steve Miller, the rock and roll musician.

Kristen Welker was seen as a bright, sharp TV reporter who also happened to be good-looking back in 2011, when I featured her on my beautiful-women picture blog, and she became my most viewed subject, with comments each made up of a single word - most of those single-word comments being adjectives that complimented her journalistic skills.  I've talked about that before.  At the time I ended my beautiful-women picture blog, Kristen Welker was a big reason I ended it.  Not the biggest reason, but still a big one.  This picture of her enjoying the company of Stephen Miller destroyed any respect I might have still had for her.

I don't even watch or listen to mainstream broadcast news anymore - I haven't since November 2024.  I consume a lot of independent media on YouTube.  Jim Acosta's channel is one of the best.  I hope Kaitlan Collins starts her own YouTube channel when the Ellison family's attempt to buy out CNN's parent company and put Bari Weiss at the head of CNN comes to pass (the takeover is still in limbo) so she can continue her fearless reporting on Trump.  

But even if Kristen Welker were to admit tomorrow that she was wrong and has changed her ways, I'm finished with her.  Given her movie-star looks, not even a Hollywood ending, ironically, can save her career.

Meet De Pressing

Kristen Welker is a reason I'm ending my beautiful-women picture blog.

One of the articles of faith the led me to create that blog was that women of all backgrounds, not just actresses, models and dancers, are beautiful.  That would certainly be true, of course, of TV newswomen . . .  like Kristen Welker.  I had always emphasized the journalistic qualifications of women I have featured as much of their beauty, and when I first posted the picture of her above on my beautiful-women picture blog in July 2011, Kristen Welker - then an NBC reporter - seemed to be the perfect example.

And my followers agreed - the post got 56,436 pageviews, the most views any post on my blog had ever gotten.  It was also gratifying and reassuring to see so much interest in Kristen Welker in light of her mixed heritage - she's the daughter of a white father and a black mother.  This led me to write the following paragraph on my blog: 

"I have to say once again that I'm very pleased that a post of a biracial woman, at a time of increased racial animosity in America, has gotten so much [positive] attention. Not just in pageviews, but in comments; my original post of Ms. Welker has received ten comments, all favorable (adjectives used to describe her have included 'hot,' 'smart,' 'beautiful,' 'knowledgeable,' 'articulate,' 'focused,' 'elegant,' and 'professional'). Her transcendental quality as a woman of black and white origin proves that racism is slowly dying."

I was wrong about racism slowly dying, of course, but not as wrong as I was about Kristen Welker, who has since turned out to be just another corporate-news-media stooge.  When I posted this picture of her on my beautiful-women picture blog, in 2011, Kristen Welker was just a reporter at NBC.  But in September 2023, she succeeded Chuckles the Clown (also known as Chuck Todd) as the moderator of  NBC's "Meet the Press."  I eagerly awaited her debut on the program, only to see her "interview" Donald Trump and get run off course by his lies and half-truths instead of countering his falsehoods.   That was bad enough.  But what happened this past Sunday was too much - and inspired less flattering adjectives to describe Welker, such as "appalling," "lunkheaded," "unserious," "clueless" and "derelict."

She brought up in a phone interview with Trump the topic of Trump's ambition for run for a third presidential term and asked if he was just kidding about that, but he said he was "not joking."  He said that his astonishing popularity in the polls demanded that he run again, and he offered possible end runs around the constitutional ban on third presidential terms that has been in place since 1951.  Welker failed to challenge Trump abut his poll numbers - they're actually in the toilet - and at no point did Welker call out Trump or explain to him why he couldn't circumvent the 22nd Amendment and how his ideas to do so were, essentially, illegal.  She just blew it off.

Welker also blew something up - her credibility.

Even though my beautiful-women picture blog will be shut down at the end of May, I went ahead and deleted my two posts of Kristen Welker (the second one was an experiment to see if it would get as many views as the first; it never even came close).  My blog may be only be around for two more months, but I don't even want Kristen Welker on my blog for even two more weeks.  I'm actually embarrassed - humiliated, even - that this blog attempted to feature TV newswomen known for their beauty but still celebrated them for their professionalism and substance as journalists . . . though, when you get right down to it, there I was, objectifying for her looks an NBC reporter who demonstrated the Peter Principle by getting Tim Russert's old job. 😧

And somehow it was my most popular post. 😞

These Boots Aren't Made For Welker

I was rooting for Kristen Welker.  I really was.  As the first woman and as the first biracial person (he father is white, her mother is black), to moderate NBC's "Meet the Press," as the most popular woman on my beautiful-women picture blog (my July 2011 post of her has gotten over 51,000 views),  and as a reporter who has a more prestigious and storied career than Kaitlan Collins over at CNN, she had me expecting her interview with Donald Trump, her inaugural feature as the new "Meet the Press" moderator, to be a ball she'd knock out of the park.  I was expecting her to take Trump down in a way no other reporter could.

Instead, she proved no more effective than Kaitlan Collins.        

During her interview with Trump, Welker encountered every problem that Collins and other reporters had - she had to deal with Trump spewing lies, conspiracy theories, slogans, and all other sorts of verbal trickeries.  She rarely tried to contradict him, given her structured set of questions for Trump, and when she did, she responded to his lies and half-truths about the Democrats, making her seem like an operative for the Democratic Party and confirming, in the minds of MAGA Republicans, the belief that that the media and the government are out to stop Trump and go after anyone who agrees with him.  I mean, how else could you explain this "discussion" of these charges against Hunter Biden, who was just indicted for twelve charges, including a charge of illegal gun possession and several charges of misconduct in business affairs:

DONALD TRUMP: Well, sure, maybe. I mean, let’s see what happens. But this [gun charge] is the only charge that doesn’t affect Joe Biden . . . the gun charge. But gun charges are very serious. You know, people have had gun charges and gone to jail for a lot of, a lot of years. I pardoned some people who I thought it was just horrible what happened. But they were put in jail for many, many years, rappers and others. So, look, it’s a bad thing. But it’s one of 12, and it’s the one charge that doesn’t affect Joe Biden. 

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, of course, there's no evidence that the President has any link to his son's business dealings. Let me ask you, though — 

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don't — 

KRISTEN WELKER: – about a second — 

DONALD TRUMP: – necessarily agree.

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, there is no — 

DONALD TRUMP: He called in. I mean, he called in to all these meetings. He was calling in on the meetings. He was put on speakerphone and — every single day and — 

KRISTEN WELKER: The witness who testified — 

DONALD TRUMP: – literally many, many calls. And what about the fact that he got rid of the prosecutor for a billion dollars? They said — 

KRISTEN WELKER: Well, the witness who testified — 

DONALD TRUMP: "You don't get rid of this prosecutor, we’re not giving you a billion dollars to Ukraine." He said that. I mean, there are a lot of things here, Kristen.

Even as they kept interrupting each other, Trump managed to complete his sentences while denying Welker the ability to complete hers.

Many media critics agree that Welker should have questioned Trump more extemporaneously rather than stick to a prepared set of questions.  Because Trump knows what to expect why the questions are structured in advance and subsequently bobs and weaves to his own pleasure an the frustration of the interviewer. Somehow, I expected Welker to be more savvy than that. 

Still, Welker has more journalistic credibility than Kaitlan Collins.  Remember that Welker was on tap to replace Chuckles the Clown (formerly Chuck Todd) long before she set herself up to be steamrolled by Trump.  Collins, by contrast, got her own show on CNN after her disastrous town hall with Trump, having perversely gotten her show in the timeslot once occupied by Chris Cuomo for her allegedly masterful handling of Trump.  I could say that, Collins, like Chuckles the Clown at NBC News, benefited from the Peter Principle, but the Peter Principle says that you rise above your competence level when you get promoted to a position you can't handle by not screwing up in your lower-level jobs.  Collins screwed up with Trump and still got promoted.

As for Welker, well, what can I say?  I'm disappointed, of course.  And it now suddenly seems much more trivial than it already was to feature Welker, Collins, and other female news personalities on my beautiful-women picture blog.  In this new world of subjective reality ("Truth isn't truth!" - Rudolph Giuliani), maybe featuring female news personalities on my beautiful-women picture blog isn't so appropriate anymore, given that women in visual broadcast media weren't - or weren't supposed to be - hired for their looks.  Right now, I expect to feature a lot fewer female news personalities on my other blog than before, and I might just stop featuring them altogether.

As for Trump, he would have done what he did to Welker and Collins to a male broadcast journalist as well.  In fact, he could eat punks like George Stephanopoulos for breakfast.

And I think the most effective way to deal with Donald Trump in the news business is . . . not to give him any free media at all.