The abuse heaped on this year's White House Correspondents' Dinner would put you off going. It used to be fun when it began 80 years ago but now the begrudgers have got to work.
The stuffy New York Times announced grandly that it would not be attending this year as it had better things to do than mix with a "glittery scrum". The scrum in turn attracts "a breathless army of entertainment reporters, whose mission is to get pictures and maybe a few pretty useless words from anybody famous".
Actually a few Times reporters were among this year's 2,700 guests at the dinner in the cavernous ballroom of the Washington Hilton. They braved what the newspaper described as a "tiresome annual affair" where "the food was almost as heavy as the speeches" and "uncomfortably overdressed journalists sat down once a year with their sources".
But that's what it used to be like in the old days. Now it has mutated into an "antic opera bouffe of media, celebrity and politics", or "a narcissistic Godzilla of journalistic self-congratulation". Take your pick.
Some citizens had the nerve to parade outside with placards saying "White House Pimps Corps". Other placards about President Clinton were even more derogatory but he probably did not see them as he was whisked into an underground basement. These precautions date from 1982 when President Reagan was shot outside the Hilton by John Hinckley, who still languishes in a mental institution several miles away.
It was touch and go whether Mr Clinton would come this year. The problem was that he would have to shake the hand of Michael Isikoff of Newsweek for his prize-winning reporting of Mr Clinton's shenanigans with Monica Lewinsky.
That would be carrying noblesse oblige to heroic heights or depths, especially as Hillary would be looking on. The White House press corps badgered Joe Lockhart, the President's spokesman, for days - would he or would he not shake the Isikoff hand? "I have not the slightest idea," said Lockhart in what was almost certainly a white lie.
Of course it had been all worked out. The President would come but only after the various prizes had been presented, hence no hand-shaking.
The President came late and told some good jokes about Al Gore and about himself. He recalled that he had made it on to the recent list of the century's top 100 news stories at No. 53 - "something about the events of last year".
He went on: "Fifty-three? I mean what does a guy have to do to make the top 50 around here? I came in six places after the invention of plastic, for crying out loud. And I don't recall a year of 24hour-a-day saturation coverage on the miracle of plastic."
We all roared but wondered what Hillary was thinking as she sat silently at the top table.
Larry Flynt, publisher of Hustler and pornographer supreme, wearing a green dinner jacket also laughed from his wheelchair. It is the presence of Flynt and celebrities like Sean Penn, Melanie Griffith, Vanessa Redgrave, Susan McDougall and Princess Di's former butler, Paul Burrell, that gets the New York Times on its high horse about "the buzz specialists from New York and Hollywood".
Last year, Paula Jones, who has since relieved Mr Clinton of $850,000 in her law suit, was the big attraction. Mind you Sharon Stone was also there talking about her Irish roots to our ambassador, Sean O hUiginn, so there is serious culture as well as glitz.
Larry Flynt was the guest this year of John F. Kennedy jnr, who is the publisher of George magazine. This has led to handsome John being nominated by columnist Michael Kelly for the "most revolting spectacle" prize.
Kelly lists some of Hustler's lurid excesses and Flynt's own unprintable actions and then goes for the Kennedy jugular: "Above all, it must be considered that Mr Flynt is a man who first rose to national prominence, in 1975, for printing in Hustler nude photographs of none other than . . . the mother of John F. Kennedy jnr. A very impressive nominee."
It makes you wonder if it is worth struggling into a tuxedo and walking past camera-clicking tourists around the Hilton. Gen Colin Powell said this will "probably be my last", but Henry Kissinger looked as though he wouldn't miss it for worlds.
Lucianne Goldberg, the New York publicist who egged on Linda Tripp to tape-record Monica's phone calls about trysts with the President, also enjoyed it. "I'm here to revel in the hypocrisy," she said unashamedly.
It was "a night when bad food and big stars collide" as yet another headline put it.