The Scrapbook has been impressed, during the past several months, by some things President Trump has not done.
First, he interrupted a modern presidential tradition by not inviting this year’s American Nobel Prize recipients to a glittering White House reception. Not unexpectedly, Trump’s detractors put this down to philistinism, or disgust for chemistry, or perhaps a (well-grounded) fear that one or two of the laureates might use the occasion to complain about Neil Gorsuch or offer an impassioned plea for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Either way, the whole business of a president granting an audience to distinguished citizens—or more typically, winners of the National Hockey League championship—smacks of the kind of monarchical court that the presidency was never intended to be.
Along those lines, we’ve been equally gratified that Trump has not only kept his distance from the sets of The View and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert but has irritated all the right people locally by refraining from attending such self-important Beltway rituals as the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner and, last week, the Kennedy Center Honors.
The Honors are a particular Scrapbook bête noire: Intended in 1978 to recognize illustrious names from the world of the performing arts (early recipients included Aaron Copland, George Balanchine, Arthur Rubinstein, Tennessee Williams, and the like), they have steadily evolved into another show-biz awards show, complete with red carpet, which happens to take place in Washington. With the possible exception of choreographer Carmen de Lavallade, this year’s recipients—LL Cool J, Norman Lear, Gloria Estefan, Lionel Richie—were entirely typical.
With luck, this particular presidential trend will continue. We look forward to the president finding some polite excuse to avoid the self-congratulatory orgy that is the Gridiron Club dinner and, especially, the annual White House reception and photo op for the Super Bowl winners. Indeed, given the hard feelings that exist between the NFL and the president, Trump would be especially wise to take a knee for that one.
