

Cecily Strong will host the WHCD next year. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Getty Images for Montblanc)

Finally, a response to the grumbling at last year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, where the evening’s comedic entertainment by Joel McHale was met in some quarters with ‘What, was Amy Poehler too busy?’

“Saturday Night Live” cast member Cecily Strong will headline the 2015 installment of the annual black-tie extravaganza, the White House Correspondents’ Association announced on Wednesday.

Strong will be the fourth woman to take on the duty of roasting the president and the press corps that covers him. Since 1983, when the annual tradition of a comedian’s performance began, the three women headliners have been Paula Poundstone in 1992, Elayne Boosler in 1993, and Wanda Sykes in 2009.

“Her political humor is sly and edgy, and it comes with a Chicago accent,” WHCD President Christi Parsons said in an e-mail, noting the comedian boasts some journalistic and political connections: Strong’s father was Bill Strong, the well-known AP bureau chief at the Illinois statehouse.

It’s not that the WHCDA members responsible for booking the funnymen and -women haven’t tried to expand their pool of recruits in pursuit of gender equity. The WHCD is notorious in comedy circles as a tough gig. The roomful of journos and pols are known as a jaded audience with plenty of thin skins, and it’s tricky to pull off the kind of bipartisan barbs the job demands.

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