Cagle World

If you’re getting ready for summer vacation, here’s a handy checklist of things you won’t need.

A map. Remember those? I’m referring to the kind you got for free at the gas station. When spread out it covered the entire backseat, yet never had quite enough detail to indicate how many miles before the turn from Main Street onto the highway. These maps came folded in such a way that once opened by anyone other than a gas station attendant they could never be returned to their original condition.

Transistor radio. This provided the soundtrack for summer. From the 60s through the early 80s you could walk along any beach on Long Island and hear every word WABC’s Dan Ingram said – even without a radio of your own – because so many people were blasting the same station. Big Dan provided a great service by running countless Coppertone commercials and advising when it was time to roll over.

Stamps. For a short trip you might get by with a booklet of stamps, but for a month or more you would need a roll. The concept, for those too young to remember, was that you would use stamps to send postcards on which you wrote messages – usually something like: “Arrived safely, although we got lost several times. Rain is expected to let up by Friday. The picture on the other side is of the gift shop in town where I bought this card. Love, Pete.”

Coins. So many things on a vacation used to require coins: vending machines, toll booths, parking meters and, most importantly, pay phones. Finding a phone was always a challenge; finding one that worked was an even bigger challenge. But to locate a functioning pay phone and then run out of change – a disaster!

Batteries. As soon as our vacation plans were confirmed, my dad would say, “I’ve got to stock up on batteries.” You could get by with having dirty underwear or forgetting your hat, but you never, ever, wanted to find yourself on vacation without fresh batteries. The big fat ones went in the flashlight, while smaller ones powered the radio and the flash on the camera.

Camera. Before cellphones, people on vacation actually carried a camera wherever they went, plus an enormous amount of what was known as “camera gear.” Many folks got along fine with a simple Brownie. But often a family had one person, usually an uncle, who brought it all: flash attachment, lenses, filters, tripod, and a bulky case. His pictures weren’t much better than those shot with the Brownie, although taking them was always a more elaborate production.

Board games. As kids we might have flown several thousand miles for a glimpse of the Grand Canyon, yet the big attraction was sitting in the hotel playing Monopoly or Clue. Nowadays the best games are on devices that can be carried – so kids can play while walking along the Grand Canyon without ever looking up.

Travelers checks. Money used to be a major problem on a trip if you failed to plan ahead by purchasing travelers checks. The most popular kind, issued by American Express, used a distinctive blue ink so as to convey value while not being confused with actual cash. For foolproof security, you signed them in not one but two places! If you miscalculated and ran out of travelers checks you were forced to get money “wired” to you via Western Union, with branches located in the seediest part of every town.

A few more things you needn’t worry about this summer. Don’t board your dog (pets all fly free these days as “service animals”). Don’t forward your calls (the only calls to your landline are from robots trying to sell you things). And don’t ask the Post Office to hold your mail (it will only be junk – unless, of course, you decide to send yourself a postcard).

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

When rational thinking fails or is simply ignored, conflation often takes over. It is, by definition, the merging of two or more different sets of information or opinion into one.

President Trump is a master conflator. For instance, he cites horrible crimes committed by a relatively small number of undocumented immigrants and conflates their actions with the overall immigration problem facing the nation. In truth, immigrants commit far less crime proportionately than the total population of U.S. citizens.

Another example: Trump and his henchmen in Congress are determined to conflate the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s email abuses with Robert Mueller’s probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Clinton’s case was clearly mishandled,’so much so that both Democrats and Republicans have plenty to complain about.

But to conflate Clinton’s case with Mueller’s investigation is nonsense. Yet, it’s omnipresent in Trump’s tweets, among Congressional Republicans and on Fox News.

Sometimes well-intentioned people, with legitimate concerns, conflate things in a desperate attempt to prove or protest a larger point. This week, it’s happening in the wake of the slaughter-by-gun at a newspaper in Maryland.

Fact: the nation has a horrific gun problem that its lawmakers continue to ignore. Fact: the Trump Administration spares no effort to attack the news outlets, branding them as “fake news,” and perhaps sending a signal that violence against journalists is somehow acceptable.

But did these two awful truths come together in the attack at the Capital Gazette? There is no evidence that they did.

Jarrod Ramos, 38, lost a defamation case against the newspaper three years ago and was apparently seething about it ever since. His revenge Thursday left five people dead.

It is certainly possible that Ramos felt empowered by Trump’s relentless attacks on news media but there is nothing so far to suggest that. To call the crime in Maryland an assault on freedom of the press is misguided.

The New England Newspaper & Press Association is urging its members to sign a statement relating to the events in Maryland. It reads in part:

“The recent anti-media rhetoric creates an enabling environment for violence against journalists and that, in turn, creates a new challenge to the key tenets of objectivity, independence and fairness which underpin the profession.”

It’s a fine statement in a generic sense, but to tie it to the specific events in Maryland is not good journalism. The victims this time were journalists, but they might just as well have been real estate agents or bank tellers against whom a deranged individual acted because he had a grudge and a gun.

Journalists are, indeed, under verbal attack in America. Conflating their plight with gun violence in Maryland is not the best way to gain progress on either front.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.©2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

The little girl at the border with tears in her eyes. We saw her on front pages, on TV newscasts and on the cover of Time magazine.

It’s a powerful image – perhaps more responsible than anything else for forcing a change in the administration’s policy on separating kids from parents in immigration cases.

Yet, as we learned a few days later, this particular child was never separated from her mother. At the moment the photo was taken, the mother was being frisked by border agents, a fairly routine process that took roughly two minutes.

Does it matter? That’s a question prompting robust debate among journalists as well as fierce pushback from the White House.

The photographer, veteran John Moore of Getty Images, never suggested that the young Honduran girl was being separated from her parent. Moore called the photo “a straightforward and honest image” showing a “distressed little girl” whose mother was being searched.

However, the flood of emotion and outrage that swept across the nation was clearly not about searches. It was about separation. And Moore’s photo quickly became an icon in protests about the later.

The picture was used by a California couple who set up a fundraiser on Facebook. Over a half-million people have contributed, and the fund has exceeded $20 million.

The New York Daily News ran the photo as its entire front page. A tiny caption stated that the girl’s mother was being searched, but the clear implication was that this was a case of separation. Indeed, the paper’s accompanying headline spoke of “children ripped from parents at border.”

News photos play an important role in selling a story – and a point of view – because photos never lie. Or do they?

Consider the quickly-viral photo of President Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, seemingly locked in a stare-down at the Group of Seven gathering. Mr. Trump tweeted that it was a neutral moment, but many editors used the image to accompany reports of a contentious meeting.

Perhaps editors felt the photo truly reflected both a moment in time as well as the bigger picture. But what about the girl at the border? Is it journalistically responsible to use an image to represent something that it clearly is not?

The administration and conservative commentators have pounced on John Moore’s photo to criticize media and promote the notion that if this photo was misleading then perhaps the entire immigration coverage is too.

That’s not the case. But editors and advocates did themselves no favor by allowing the image to illustrate a broad position rather than a specific fact.

Moore told the Washington Post: “I believe this image has raised awareness to the zero-tolerance policy of this administration.” He added that “this photograph for me is part of a much larger story.”

Perhaps. But ends-justify-the-means coverage is not good journalism.

The notion that a picture is worth a thousand words is of no use if those words must be devoted to clarifying what the picture is really about.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

SAN FRANCISCO – Welcome to the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like but, to paraphrase the Eagles, your money can never leave.

The state has a problem faced by few others: What to do with roughly $13 billion in extra money.

Tax revenue here is running far ahead of projections and politicians on both sides of the aisle think it’s time to slice up the surplus pie. However, most Democrats see it as an opportunity to increase spending on social projects, while most Republicans advocate a more direct give-back, such as lowering the 12-cent per gallon gasoline tax.

Governor Jerry Brown, whose final budget before he leaves office was approved this month, is worried about rainy days. “This is a time to save for our future, not to make pricey promises we can’t keep,” Brown warned. “I said it before and I’ll say it again: Let’s not blow it now.”

Brown speaks from experience. Just seven years ago, as he began his third term, California was $27 billion in the red. Belt-tightening, increased taxes and a surge in the state’s economy has changed things dramatically.

Just six months ago, the governor was projecting a surplus of roughly $6 billion. Last month he revised the figure to nearly $9 billion. Now, Brown says his “Rainy Day Fund” will grow to its constitutional maximum of $13.8 billion within the next 12 months.

Why not just give the money back? It happened once, in 1986, when Republican Gov. George Deukmejian returned $1.1 billion to taxpayers.

But Brown and the Democrats, who control the legislature in Sacramento, believe these are volatile times, with financial collapse always looming.

The state’s most contentious money matter is its gasoline tax. Californians have the dubious distinction of using their cars more than most Americans, while also paying some of the nation’s highest prices at the pump. The gasoline tax revenue is used for badly needed road repairs – budgeted at $52 billion over the next decade.

A move is underway to get a gas tax repeal measure on the November ballot. Polls show that is one issue that could draw a significant number of Democrats over to the Republican position.

More than any other state, California has a boom-or-bust economy. The tech explosion in recent years has fueled the boom. But there are still grim reminders of the very recent past when school programs were slashed, food programs for the needy were cut, and the state’s highways fell into serious disrepair.

To Jerry Brown’s credit, his new budget does not contain the lavish spending increases that some of his more progressive supporters advocate. But it also avoids cuts and give-backs that would leave the state vulnerable. The state endured a $40 billion deficit in 2009 – a sum that dwarfs the current Rainy Day savings.

And so, a reasonable Californian might say, “I was thinking to myself, ‘This could be heaven or this could be hell.'”

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

Domino’s offers to “insure” your purchase in the event your car is crushed by a tree and you slip on an icy sidewalk causing the pizza you are holding to land in a snow bank. It’s either the dumbest marketing scheme ever hatched or the most brilliant.

Carryout Insurance, as they call it in the commercial whose plot is outlined above, covers damaged pizzas if returned within two hours of purchase. Domino’s provides these examples of when the insurance would kick in: “A stranger sneezed on it” and “My dog licked it.”

There’s no telling how many claims have been made since Domino’s launched the campaign, but it can’t be many. I’ve consumed more pizza than I care to admit and I don’t recall ever having one become so damaged that I’d want to drive back to the store and seek a replacement.

Yet, the marketing pitch sounds generous. How kind to replace a pizza in the event “Birds thought it was a bird feeder,” which is another example mentioned on Domino’s website.

The timing for this campaign is perfect since we seem to be living in an age of buyers’ remorse, with so many products being returned that several of the most truly gracious merchants have had to change their policies.

L.L. Bean says it has lost $250 million in the last five years due to abuse of its legendary return policy that allowed customers to send back items, regardless of condition, forever! The company’s chief, Shawn Gorman, explained in February, “a small, but growing number of customers has been interpreting our guarantee well beyond its original intent.”

So now L.L. Bean only accepts returns for one year after purchase – still a remarkably fair deal, but not good enough for scores of customers who flooded social media with complaints.

By comparison, Apple takes returns for only 14 days; Best Buy 15, and supernova Amazon for 30.

Ah, but Amazon has quietly begun banning customers who make too many returns, as first uncovered by The Wall Street Journal. The company refuses to say how many returns it takes to earn a ban. Several other mass merchants, such as Best Buy and Lowe’s, are also cracking down on returnaholics, with Lowe’s policy stating, “Lowe’s stores use refund and check verification systems. All returns are subject to system approvals.”

I have no idea what that means, but I do know that “return fraud” in the U.S. is estimated to cost merchants about $9 billion annually, according to the National Retail Federation’s 2015 survey.

That’s why offering Carryout Insurance on pizza is such a shrewd concept. It’s coverage no one needs, no one wants and will cost the company nothing. Best of all, it’s a policy that no one is likely to attempt to defraud.

It’s kind of like a radio station offering Bad Song Insurance. Don’t like the tune? We promise to play a different one within four minutes. Or Losing Score Insurance at the ballpark. Don’t like the outcome? We’ll try again in our next game, no questions asked.

Or maybe Readers Insurance. Displeased with what I’ve written? I’ll have something new as soon as I finish my pizza.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

An open letter to our customers:

We let you down. We’re sorry. And we’re going to fix it.

When it was disclosed that we willfully misrepresent the amount of sugar in our products, our first reaction was to issue a denial. That was wrong. Since then, we have donated over $5,000 to the American Sugar Alliance to fund research into safer sugars.

You probably read how four young foreign customers were arrested at one of our Chicago outlets because the manager felt their hair was too long. We’re happy to report that after just two days of sensitivity training that manager is now a senior vice president at our corporate headquarters.

After it was revealed that half of our cash registers are wired to bypass our accounting system and thus evade taxes, we could have taken the easy way out by noting that many businesses do this. Instead, we gave back to the community in the form of newspaper coupons offering 25 percent off coffee purchased after 5 p.m.

If you are among the roughly 18 million customers in our Loyalty Program who were notified recently that your personal information was inadvertently released to black market operators in Asia, we want you to know we are sorry. We have contracted with one of our offshore subsidiaries to upgrade our system without delay.

We would be remiss if we didn’t use this opportunity to apologize for the accidental release over a three-year period of toxic materials from our factory in Michigan. The thousands of residents along the Brule River who were affected, many of whom have had to relocate, are our friends and neighbors. They will not be forgotten!

As many of you know, we have had to remove the “Comments” section from our website, due to the many unsubstantiated attacks posted there. Going forward, we will conduct Town Meetings at select stores over the coming months and your participation is welcome.

Send your questions – about substandard wages, discriminatory hiring practices, union busting, etc. – to our public relations department at the address below. Be sure to enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you wish to be notified about whether your question has been selected for discussion at a Town Meeting in a state near you.

Next Wednesday at 3 p.m. we will be closing all of our stores for 90 minutes. Our Team Members and Management Partners will conduct a thorough cleaning, long overdue, of our restroom facilities. We heard your complaints. We won’t let you down.

This company was established in 2011. We were re-established in 2014. Now, we are re-re-established in 2018.

We pledge to re-establish ourselves, as often as needed, until we make things right.

It’s a new day in America. We are proud to do our part by running this ad.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

I’ve just returned from my summer vacation, which I now take in mid-May so I can use the remaining time until Labor Day to recover. Here’s what I learned.

At many airports the TSA’s Pre-Check lines are as long as the ordinary lines. Perhaps they need a Pre-Pre-Check line.

The policy of “boarding by group number” is out of control, with some airlines juggling as many as nine groups. It seems “priority” is now determined by what credit card you own.

To get passengers to watch safety demonstrations, airlines have turned to oddball presentations that have about as much to do with safety as a Luis Fonsi music video. In United’s clip, for example, patrons at what appears to be the Hofbrauhaus Tavern in Munich cavort as oxygen masks drop mysteriously from the ceiling.

American Airlines should rethink the layout of its 767-300 cabins. On my flight, four people hit their heads on low-hanging overhead bins, with me being the grouchiest among them.

In addition to being overstuffed with passengers and their bulky carry-ons, many flights are now packed with pets. Seems even the healthiest travelers depend on “service” animals.

When renting a car, I’ve always wondered why companies don’t provide the owner’s manual,’especially since today’s cars have such confusing instrumentation. My Volvo had a nice GPS screen, but the map covered a 500 mile swath because I didn’t realize that every time I adjusted what I assumed was the radio knob, I was expanding the map.

I asked the Avis guy why no manual. He explained that too many customers steal them but then, to my surprise, he confided that in most cars Avis hides the manual in the trunk under the spare tire. Result: fewer manuals go missing, while more motorists have no idea how to turn on the windshield wipers.

If you’re planning to vacation in a foreign country, remember that many use a 24-hour clock. My wife Amy mistakenly made all of our dinner reservations for 7:30 in the morning.

Bad news on the hotel front. Some chains are switching to wall-mounted soap dispensers like the kind in public restrooms, to avoid the cost of those tiny soaps. Listen, some of us like lathering certain areas with a bar of soap rather than with our hand. Besides, I’d hate to run out of little hotel bars at home and, for the first time in my adult life, have to buy soap.

Note: at breakfast, toasters with a rotating wire wheel don’t accomplish anything on a single pass; it takes three times through to get a bagel slightly browned. Also, do-it-yourself waffle makers are a mess.

Don’t bother asking the front desk for a newspaper, since younger clerks seem not to have heard of them. And don’t inquire at a Holiday Inn Express about a good local restaurant unless what you’re hoping to find is Applebee’s.

As you head home, be aware that nowadays the only way to distinguish your suitcase at baggage claim is to not tie a ribbon on the handle.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

The 1966 baseball season was particularly memorable in St. Louis, and not just because the Cardinals moved to a new $25 million stadium, hosted the All-Star Game, and every few days sent flame-thrower Bob Gibson to the mound where he won 21 games and struck out 225 batters.

That year the Cardinals created a unique promotional giveaway. It was beautiful, it was coveted, and it helped define a marketing concept that has angered fans for over half a century.

The Immortals Coin Set, as it was known, consisted of a 9-inch, red cardboard display, with slots for 12 gold-colored “coins,” honoring local greats including Stan Musial, Dizzy Dean and Frankie Frisch. But here’s the rub: Instead of distributing it to everyone attending a game, the Cardinals gave the set only to season ticket holders.

The shortsighted marketing strategy of tempting many fans, but pleasing only some, continues today across the Major Leagues, where attendance is slipping and premiums, such as bobbleheads, often seem more attractive to fans than the action on the field.

This season, for example, the Boston Red Sox are giving away prized bobbleheads on five dates to the first 10,000 people to arrive at Fenway Park. Trouble is, Fenway holds 37,755 people, meaning that at each bobblehead game there could be as many as 27,755 unhappy fans.

The Yankees are also giving away bobbleheads on five dates, to the first 18,000 “guests,” as the team calls its paying customers. But Yankee Stadium holds 54,251 people, leaving room for 36,251 soon-to-be-former guests.

In Houston, where Minute Maid Park holds 41,168 people, the Astros limit most giveaways – including the “floppy summer hat,” the “infinity scarf,” the “Astros gym bag” and four bobbleheads – to only the first 10,000 who show up.

Offering gifts to relatively few fans is really a ploy to bring customers to ballparks hours ahead of time in order to sell them food, beverages and, yes, other souvenirs.

In San Francisco, the Giants are not only stingy with giveaways, they also have the audacity to offer a package of 24 free souvenirs to season ticket holders – a $0 value – for the bargain price of $260.

A few teams, such as the Phillies, Marlins and Angels, give most promotional items to all fans who attend a game. But others seem to be pennywise and fan foolish. In Arizona, the Diamondbacks offered a Kids Bat & Ball Set to kick off this season – but only to the first 5,000 youngsters.

Baseball’s marketing executives have been debating this for years, clearly coming to different strategic conclusions. Some work with simple math, weighing the cost of each item against projected revenue for the specific game; others see a bigger picture in creating fan loyalty.

When former Yankees great Derek Jeter took over this year as the Marlins CEO, he promised a “first class” experience, and followed up by announcing that giveaways will be available to all fans.

That’s very much in the spirit of the guy who started all this, Bill Veeck, baseball’s version of P.T. Barnum. Beginning in 1946, when he ran the Cleveland Indians, Veeck gave away everything from full-size bats to free hotdogs, free lobsters and free chocolate-covered ants. He even staged a “Free Nylon Stocking Day.”

Veeck’s antics often angered fellow owners, but he was a master at bringing fans to the ballpark and making them happy. Veeck even began the tradition of singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” in the seventh inning.

Sadly, when it comes to today’s promotions at the ballgame, many fans simply feel taken.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

Sometimes it takes a year or more for a president’s strengths to come into focus. In Donald Trump’s case, it is now clear that he excels whenever he bestows upon us the honor of his absence.

As Senator John McCain battles cancer at his home in Arizona he has sent word that President Trump will not be welcome at his funeral. Mike Pence is O.K., but not the man who said McCain wasn’t much of a hero because he allowed himself to be captured by enemy soldiers during the Vietnam War.

So, when a grateful nation says goodbye to McCain at Washington’s National Cathedral, Trump will no doubt make some excuse about why he can’t attend. He’ll probably be off playing golf, as he was in April during services for the beloved former First Lady Barbara Bush. Trump said via Twitter that he did not want the security measures required for his presence to be disruptive.

That’s an odd concern, considering the fact that no family in American history has spent more time dealing with the Secret Service than the Bushes. Besides, Mrs. Bush’s funeral was attended by Presidents Clinton, Obama, Bush 41 and Bush 43, as well as the properly dignified and nondisruptive Melania Trump.

Lame excuses notwithstanding, Trump plays the RSVP card masterfully.

A few weeks ago he declined to attend the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, preferring to hide out at a rally in Michigan while comic Michelle Wolf unleashed a barrage of anti-Trump jokes. Some found Wolf’s act to be unsavory including, presumably, the White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders, who was stuck taking Trump’s place on the dais.

The president knew exactly what he was doing by staying away and playing the victim.

Trump artfully decided against throwing out the first pitch when the Washington Nationals held their home opener on April 5th. Every president since Taft has thrown out a ceremonial first pitch for at least one baseball game – except Trump.

His absence even forced the Nationals to cancel the traditional military flyover because the president’s impending travel in the opposite direction made the area restricted airspace. Small price to pay to avoid a chorus of boos.

Last December, Trump skipped the Kennedy Center Honors after some honorees and performers threatened a boycott. Sarah Sanders explained that Trump was afraid of causing a “political distraction.”

As Trump discovers that his poll numbers actually inch up the more he stays out of sight, there’s no limit to what he might accomplish. A major test will come this fall in the midterm elections.

Will Trump campaign for Republicans in tightly-contested states such as Nevada, Arizona and Florida? What if he shows up and spends all his time ranting about Hillary Clinton, Robert Mueller and Fake News?

Trump’s best chance to help the GOP and himself would be to skip all campaign events, citing concern about disruptions and distractions. Then, he might want to skip the World Series, the annual White House Christmas party and, by next January, he might even consider boycotting his own State of the Union speech.

Trump is like T.S. Elliot’s Macavity: he’s broken every human law; he breaks the law of gravity. You may seek him in the basement, you may look up in the air, but when you reach the scene of crime, Macavity’s not there!

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.

By Peter Funt

What a shame that the people who will profit most from the tempest that was the White House Correspondents’ Dinner are the two who deserve it least: Michelle Wolf and Donald Trump.

Pundits, myself included, dissected the event with such gusto that folks outside the Beltway are likely fed up. But stick with me here, because this is a case where the whole of this mess is more important than the sum of its parts.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, I called Wolf’s performance a “Saturday Night Massacre of dignity and common sense.” My research shows that Wolf is the only entertainer in the WHCD’s 97-year history to use the f-word, and she used it three times, a dubious distinction. The issue is propriety not prudishness.

Beyond concluding that Wolf was foul and unfunny, I am most concerned that her act gives Trump ammunition to use against Democrats and media – perhaps all the way to 2020. He didn’t waste time, tweeting that the show was a “big, boring bust”; there will undoubtedly be harsher things to come.

If you believe that most Washington-based journalists are anti-Trump and secretly wish that he will fail and/or be driven out of office, then I suppose you might subscribe to the notion that Wolf was hired to advance that cause. I don’t see it that way, but I’m troubled that the head of the Correspondents’ Association, Bloomberg’s Margaret Talev, chose not to screen Wolf’s material in advance.

Talev explained later that, “It’s a night about free speech” – which is true, but quite beside the point.

Many liberals can’t bring themselves to criticize anyone who takes shots at Trump and his administration, even if the remarks cross the lines for both fairness and humor. Jonathan Capehart, for example, praised Wolf in the Washington Post under the headline: “Shut up about Michelle Wolf if you’ve been silent on Trump’s offenses.”

Rob Reiner, the actor and producer, attended the WHCD, then wrote that because Trump “has so poisoned the atmosphere” in remarks about the disabled, Mexicans, Muslims and others, “the rule of law that a comedian who simply tells the truth is offensive?”

No, not at all. Wolf wasn’t telling the truth, she was making lame jokes.

Conflating atrocities in governance with bad standup comedy is a mistake. And the notion that one side’s bad behavior gives the other side license to be worse is why American political discourse is spiraling out of control.

Meanwhile, Netflix execs and Wolf’s managers must be drowning themselves in champagne. Whatever size audience the previously little-known Wolf would have drawn for her upcoming series, the number has now quadrupled.

Trump played it perfectly by boycotting the event and allowing the WHCA to make him a victim. And Wolf will be laughing all the way to the bank.

What a shame that those who will lose the most from the Correspondents’ Dinner are the journalists who face enormous challenges in covering Trump, and voters who have come to realize that this president is no laughing matter.

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A list of Peter Funt’s upcoming live appearances is available at www.CandidCamera.com.

Peter Funt is a writer and speaker. His book, “Cautiously Optimistic,” is available at Amazon.com and CandidCamera.com.Copyright2018 Peter Funt. Columns distributed exclusively by Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate.