Accurate.
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Came for this, was not disappointed.
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Here’s HRC’s speech the same night:
She also gets boo’d, though she doesn’t get the same reaction from The Guy On The Right, and seems to handle it better.
Pretty much a microcosm of this election: Hilary isn’t great, Trump is MUCH WORSE, and it’s actually all about rich white people acting like they’re going to help people as an excuse to shmooze with other rich white people.
Now where’s my pitchfork sharpener?
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I was watching this live and nearly came out of my skin. “…pretending not to hate Catholics?” Gobsmacked, I was.
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As Hillary basically pointed out with this one:
But, for me, it was kind of ironic thinking about a fiery populist, Al Smith. If he were here today and saw how much money we’ve raised for needy children, he’d be very proud. And if he saw this magnificent room, full of plutocrats celebrating his legacy, he’d be very confused.
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If either party had any common sense they’d request to wear business attire at televised events. I have a hard time imagining something that looks more out-of-touch than a white-tie event. In US Culture (at least for a majority of us) we wear a tuxedo/gown for your own wedding, suits for someone else’s wedding, and khakis and shirts for less formal events.
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I think this dinner is basically the reward the candidates get for having to spend so much time at the beginning of the campaign wearing rolled-up sleeves and choking down any deep-fried monstrosity a hillbilly at the local county fair shoves in front of them.
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Booed or not, Clinton did what you’re supposed to do at this particular dinner. What every candidate up to now has done: Self deprecation, along with some relatively gentle jokes about your opponent. Trump did very little of anything that could be called self deprecation–and basically took the opportunity to say shitty things about her.
I kind of wish, though, she hadn’t made even the light jokes she did about Trump–because some in the media are characterizing it as a mutual exchange of nastiness, showing clips of each saying things about the other as if there was some equivalency between the two. But it was nothing of the sort. She was presidential and classy. He was neither. Which is to say, he was himself.
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This kind of false equivalence is part of why she needs to be twice as good as him to get half the credit.
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The irony burns so much!
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It’s white-tie formalwear: fun and anachronistic when I wore it to my high school prom in the 1980s and elegant on Fred Astaire in 1930s musicals. In contexts like this, however, it smacks of aspiration to aristocracy and Gilded-Age plutocracy – not a look that candidates in modern America should really be sporting.
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Let’s not forget this one:
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Oh God why?
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For anyone who isn’t wealthy, the white-tie event would be difficult to attend. The pricey charity dinner at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City costs anywhere from $3,000 to $25,000 to attend individually, with prices between $50,000 and $150,000 to reserve a table, according to the foundation’s website
If a white tie dress code helps persuade people to pony up that sort of cash, by all means, why not keep it around?
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They shouldn’t keep it around because it’s a televised event that’s become one of the milestones in modern Presidential elections, with clips making the next day’s news. That means, for reasons described above, the optics of this atavistic dress code are bad for the candidates the dinner now exists to showcase.
White-tie dress (or black-tie, for that matter) doesn’t do much to persuade wealthy people to shell out cash at any charity event, either. Most under age 55 roll their eyes and groan when they find out they have to break out the old soup-and-fish for a gala. Change the dress code to business eveningwear and they’d still pay the same price per seat and table for the real products: exclusivity and access and being seen.
Hopefully there will be something to eat there besides old soup and fish 
I don’t own anything approximating the anachronistic archducal white-tie getup these people are wearing. I do have a tuxedo lying around somewhere. It was my orchestra uniform from college when I had a BMI under 20. It’s threadbare now, and if I could squeeze myself into it today the results would not be pretty. I have a black funeral suit and bowtie that I guess could pass for a tuxedo in a pinch, but it’s clear I’m not in the same social circle as any of these people who routinely have to wear black-tie and white-tie dress.
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I own a tuxedo, too. Haven’t had occasion to wear it in years, but it paid for itself by offsetting rental fees during the days of (first) weddings and the occasional charity event. It’s still in decent condition, but as with yours I doubt its waistline would be forgiving to mine now.
If you’re stuck in those social circles where you still have to wear black-tie on a regular basis, a black suit with a black bow tie won’t pass for a tuxedo for those who care about such things. Better just to wear it with a straight black necktie or maybe a colourful bowtie at a formal event.
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Along with the plutocrats there’s the occasional war criminal; I think I spotted Henry Kissinger snoozing 2 rows back.
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