Amid this week's fiery discussion about whether or not it's appropriate for a comedian to make fun of a public official's appearance, we'd like to direct your attention to the last time something like this happened: 2011's White House Correspondents' Dinner, when Seth Meyers ribbed President Obama:





It's no surprise that Michelle Wolf's routine at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner is ruffling Republicans' feathers — of course a liberal comedienne is going to burn down the Trump Administration in front of a salivating group of liberal journalists.

What is surprising, however, is the bizarre insistence from a handful of journalists, along with Fox News, that Wolf was body-shaming White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders.

In her routine, Wolf made a series of jokes about Sanders, but the only explicit mention of her looks was to say that she creates "a perfect smokey eye":

I'm never really sure what to call Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Is it Sarah Sanders, Sarah Huckabee Sanders? Is it Cousin Huckabee? Is it Auntie Huckabee Sanders? Like, what's Uncle Tom but for white women who disappoint other white women?… I actually really like Sarah. I think she's very resourceful. She burns facts and then she uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye. Maybe she's born with it, maybe it's lies. It's probably lies.

In response, journalists like The New York Times Maggie Haberman, MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski, and CNN's Chris Cillizza all criticized Wolf for targeting Sanders' looks. Cillizza called Wolf's reference to Sanders' makeup "low-hanging fruit."

Implicit in these criticisms is the idea that the progressive Obama Administration would never have to put up with such harsh attacks. Glamour's Tess Kornfeld describes Obama's roasts as "good-natured."

But looking back on the White House Correspondents' Dinners of yore, it's clear that there were actually more direct attacks (he actually attended the events) on Obama's looks and fewer policy critiques:

What happened to you? When you were sworn in you looked like the guy from the Old Spice commercials, now you look like Louis Gossett Sr… I've never said this to anyone before, but maybe you should start smoking again. Is this the change you were talking about?… Mr. President, look at your hair. If your hair gets any whiter the Tea Party is going to endorse it.

Despite this, Obama heartily laughed along, and so did the press. The majority of the coverage following the dinner revolved around the digs against Donald Trump, who was also in the room.

Obama's good-natured response may have simply been because Obama has a better sense of humor than Sarah Huckabee-Sanders, but its more likely that he laughed along because he knew that the jokes obscured the fact that there was very little policy critique in Meyers' routine, which also made fun of MSNBC, Joe Biden, and Donald Trump himself.

On the other hand, Michelle Wolf's routine was full of policy criticism, covering access to female healthcare, the Flint water crisis, and Trump's positions on immigration.

So why are people in such a tizzy about a comedy routine that was relatively light on insubstantive personal attacks and heavy on political critique? Perhaps the media views the White House Correspondents' Dinner as an opportunity to extend an olive branch of comedy between themselves and their subject. But don't blame Michelle Wolf for the execution. The boss wasn't even there to accept it.