The president invited the entertainer who skewered him to the White House. When Chase was the featured comedian at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 1976, Ford embraced the shtick, scattering papers and silverware across the dais, mostly on Chase’s lap.

It was a strategy that most media-age image consultants would hail as a no-brainer: Hide your pique, show you can take a joke, don’t let your bruised feelings become the next story. It was more or less the way every subsequent president has handled his NBC doppelganger. Until now. President Trump doesn’t laugh.

Steve Hendrix