I haven’t mentioned anything about the White House Correspondents Dinner because the White House Correspondents Dinner is dumb. The supposed outrage over milquetoast jokes about an apparatchik for the powerful plutocrats running the country is dumb. The outrage over that outrage is dumb. The jokes themselves were pretty dumb. The media trying to grease their sources by defending the honor of the apparatchiks they depend on for access is dumb. My own manufactured irritation to add some salt to this paragraph is dumb. We are drowning in the detritus of disposable infotainment. We are becoming dumber. Resist.
But like a moth to a flame war, when Leslie Rutledge grandstands hilariously, I report such hilarity to you, readers. The nattering about “nerd prom” is tedious, the profiles of Sarah Huckabee Sanders are dreary, but Rutledge is genuinely funny. She is a sui generis charlatan, a phony that never phones it in. No one could roast her; the roast is implied.
Seeing an opportunity to build her email list, Rutledge today announced that she is launching “#SarahStrong” in order to defend the well-compensated spokesperson for the most powerful government in the world against jokes. “We will not stay silent,” Rutledge clarified. Thank goodness. I don’t know whether to call this thing being launched a campaign or a hashtag or what. At one point, Rutledge calls it a “movement.” What does this new movement entail? The deal is that you sign up on a page on Rutledge’s campaign website and provide your email (the email address is the only required field). The webpage doesn’t say what Rutledge does with your email once she has it. We can only guess.
Alongside the email grab, here’s the manifesto that Rutledge penned explaining the #SarahStrong movement. Liberal comedians should be ashamed. None have produced satire quite like this.
You know Sarah Huckabee Sanders as President Trump’s Press Secretary. But I know Sarah as a kind and loving daughter, mother, wife, and friend. She is an amazing and beautiful person inside and out.
But because my friend Sarah refuses to play along with the liberal media, she’s under constant and vicious attack from them. The disgusting way she was treated at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner is a new low, and we cannot stay silent. We will not stay silent!
You see, here in the South we stand up for each other when our friends are being bullied, and you’ve picked a battle with the wrong Arkansas girl. It’s hard enough being a working mom, and I can assure you it’s very hard to be a woman in politics, especially if you’re a conservative. If you want to attack us for our beliefs, for our policies, and for our politics then bring it on. But there’s a line you just don’t cross. As the first woman elected Attorney General in Arkansas, I am constantly encouraging young women to stand up and to get involved, but why would they if we remain silent when a courageous woman achieves success in politics and we allow her to be viciously and senselessly attacked?
There’s right and there’s wrong, and what happened to Sarah was just plain wrong.
That’s why today I’m calling on my fellow hardworking women, Republicans and Democrats alike, to stand up and stand behind Sarah and all of the other successful women the elitist, liberal media have berated like Kellyanne Conway and Ivanka Trump.
This isn’t about politics — this is about empowering other women. When you mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!
So join me today as we send a resounding message to our country that this is not a man’s world, this is not a liberal’s world, it is all of ours together and as women, we are #SarahStrong!
Join the #SarahStrong movement and show your support.
– Leslie Rutledge