Palin Nerd Prom: Former Alaska Governor Calls Correspondents’ Dinner ‘Pathetic’

Following the White House Correspondents' Dinner on Sunday night, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin took to Facebook and Twitter to express her disdain for the event and the people in attendance.

"Yuk it up media and pols," Palin wrote on Facebook. "While America is buried in taxes and a fight for our rights, the permanent political class in DC dresses up and has a prom to make fun of themselves. No need for that, we get the real joke."

Perhaps more acerbically, a Twitter post written after the event read, "That #WHCD was pathetic. The rest of America is out there working our asses off while these DC assclowns throw themselves a #nerdprom."

The event, which occurs once per presidential term, raises money for journalism scholarships. It was first organized in 1914 in response to fears among journalists that Congress would be responsible for selecting which reporters could attend an unprecedented series of press conferences which then-president Woodrow Wilson was planning to hold. The journalists thought up the dinner as a means of organizing and protecting the interests of those assigned to cover the White House; when the rumor about Congress proved unfounded, it later turned into a gala. In 1924, Calvin Coolidge became the first president to attend.

According to CNN, the former governor of Alaska has never gone, although in 2011, she did go to an after party at the home of the French ambassador in Washington, D.C., an event sponsored by Vanity Fair and Bloomberg News.

Conan O'Brien served as the dinner's comedic host for the second time, the first coming in 1995. CNN reported that President Barack Obama's routine made light of the controversy over Beyonce and Jay-Z's trip to Cuba, his own appearance, the History Channel's recent depiction of Satan (which many claimed resembled the president), and the country's principal media outlets, among others.

The Atlantic Wire traces the origin of the term "nerd prom" to the mid-2000s, when it was used to refer, perhaps not unfairly, to the San Diego Comics Convention. It is unclear when it first became associated with the Correspondents' Dinner, but the Atlantic points to a 2010 Washington Post article in which the "'nerd prom' image" is cited, only to be dismissed as inaccurate. The magazine reports that the majority of attendees to the dinner are celebrities, with just under a quarter coming from the government and a tenth from the business sector.