We have created a bad photoshop to show our love. That's not creepy, is it?

It's no secret everyone blames -- accurately, probably -- Barack Obama's takedown of Donald Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents' Dinner for setting off the thin-skinned babyman's revenge reflex and making him run for president. So what does that mean for the 2017 iteration of the annual Bataan Death March of Comedy? Nobody wants to see Trump himself attempt to tell jokes, and there's a credible threat that the show would simply consist of Steve Bannon giving atomic wedgies to every Jewish journalist in the audience. We are therefore happy to let you know that Samantha Bee is planning some counter-programming: a considerably less painful gala called "Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner," to be held the same night and time, and certain to be far more fun. Ms. Bee insists to the New York Times that she is absolutely not trying to upstage that other dinner, if it's even held this year:

Ms. Bee said that it was not an attempt to comment on or compete with that other, better-known banquet, but a night to include jokes about Mr. Trump that she and like-minded comedians want to make.

“We’re not trying to supersede it,” she said in a telephone interview. “We just want to be there in case something happens -- or doesn’t happen -- and ensure that we get to properly roast the president.”

To which we can only say, "Yeah, right" and "Please Please Please invite Wonkette."

We would just like to point out a few things here in pleading our case:

• The Wonkebago should almost certainly be repaired by April.
• Yr Editrix looks GREAT in a ballgown (this is both an objective fact and something she insisted we mention).
• Wonkette babby has extensive Cable Teevee Credentials and would surely be good for a ratings boost.
• Same goes for Yr Editrix.
• You know it's the right thing to do.

Anyhoo, Bee says she and the staff of "Full Frontal" came up with the idea shortly after the election, when it occurred to them the WHCD would be pretty damned uncomfortable during a Trump presidency, if it was even allowed to take place at all. "And then we thought, Why don’t we just do one, just to do it in the way that we would want it done if we were hosting it?" We can certainly get behind this. We bet John Oliver would even come, if you apologize nicely to him for saying Steve Mnuchin looked like his evil twin.

Bee said the show would probably air on TBS like "Full Frontal," but the details are still being determined:

“We have binders full of people, but we don’t have any specifics to offer yet,” she said. Ms. Bee said that proceeds from her event would go to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

And god knows that's a group that needs protection these days, even if Donald Trump has said he probably would never kill any journalists like Putin has, HA! HA!

In conclusion, we wish Ms. Bee well with her Not The WHCD, which can't help but be funnier than any attempt by Donald Trump to do comedy. In fact, dead air would be funnier than Trump's lighthearted comedy riffs at the 2016 Al Smith Dinner:

Remember that? He had one good joke, about how unfair the media is because when Michelle Obama gives a speech, everyone loves it, but when Melania gives the very same speech, she gets criticized. That was it. And then these happened:

• Hillary is so corrupt, she got kicked off the Watergate Commission. [Boos] How corrupt do you have to be to get kicked off the Watergate Commission? Pretty corrupt.
• For example, here she is tonight, in public, pretending not to hate Catholics.
• Everyone knows, of course, Hillary’s belief that it takes a village, which only makes sense after all in places like Haiti, where she’s taken a number of them.

Comedy like that makes us look forward to the sunny, optimistic worldview of FX's Baskets.

[NYT]