The White House Correspondents' Dinner is a Washington-themed party with little to do with Washington

And so it begins: The annual bacchanal known as the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. What started as a small gathering for White House reporters, an all-white, all-male enclave of power and privilege for decades, has evolved into a four-day explosion of pre-parties, after-parties, tweets, photo-ops and corporate branding.