Larry Wilmore bombed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Will he get the last laugh?

Larry Wilmore hosts the White House Correspondents&#039; Dinner

(Image credit: MSNBC)

published 2 May 2016

The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner is an odd tradition, where the president of the United States and a carefully selected comedian roast the rich, famous, and powerful people in the room, including the president, and also members of the news media, while the whole world can watch on C-SPAN. President Obama's zingers have generally been met with positive reviews — except by Donald Trump — and Saturday's roast was no exception. Larry Wilmore, this year's featured comedian, bombed. Or, at least, his routine wasn't universally embraced inside the room (CNN's Wolf Blitzer gave Wilmore some hard stares, while Don Lemon gave him the finger).

But as The Washington Post's Callum Borchers (and lots of people on Twitter) pointed out, another certain comedian who hosted a show following The Daily Show at Comedy Central also was met with uncomfortable, sometimes sparse laughter when he hosted the "nerd prom" back in 2006.

And Stephen Colbert has done pretty well for himself. More to the point, Borchers notes, "in hindsight, few would disagree with the underlying critique of Colbert's satire," that President George W. Bush had invaded Iraq on false pretenses and the media had not asked enough questions or challenged Bush adequately in the lead-up to the invasion. Wilmore's most trenchant critiques on Saturday were about race — which wouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone who's watched Wilmore's Nightly Show — though he also got in the expected jabs at the 2016 candidates as well as Obama. Will Wilmore's performance age well? You can judge his 22-minute set below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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