The big news of the day, according to several of the news sources I look at is that the fellow who attempted to break into the correspondents’ dinner and shoot the president was someone who didn’t like Donald Trump. It took the media some time to come to that conclusion, but it seemed pretty likely to me pretty quickly.

Like Donald Trump, I guess I reach conclusions by my gut. So what does my gut tell me about whether it would be less likely that a man such as Cole Allen could have breached security at the Washington Hilton more easily than at a ballroom on the grounds of the White House. Obviously, this is what President Trump would like you to conclude.

I am actually not certain. There certainly have been instances when White House security has been breached, and breaching a White House ball room would certainly create a challenge to potential breachers. A challenge that some perhaps would welcome. It would be unlikely, for certain, that a Cole Allen could get in position to rush a magnetometer, but there would be other opportunities. For example, a dinner such as Saturday night’s, which have several thousands of guests coming in, require all sorts of food and decorator and hospitality staffs, all kinds of equipment and supplies moving in, and so forth. The White House grounds would be open to many more people, and for a longer period of time, and that could lead to all sorts of problems.

Yes, it is easy to say that events like this week’s could not happen on the White House grounds, but don’t be so sure. And, if you are really so concerned about the president’s safety, you would keep the president more under wraps. Political rallies would be a no-no (certainly what happened at the Washington Hilton could happen at any political rally), as would the off-hand trips that presidents take to various parts of the country (and the world), virtually all of which are taken for political reasons. Chaos could erupt anywhere and the surprising thing is how seldom this in fact happens.

And, of course, Donald Trump being Donald Trump, he has to show his fortitude to the world by telling the White House Correspondents’ Association that they have to reschedule their dinner within 30 days. If this is done, it will be a miracle, but so far the WHCA has not told the president that it is impossible. But the only way this dinner could be scheduled at the Hilton would, I am sure, be to bump other activities there. There are very few nights (certainly very few weekend nights) when that hotel is not filled with activities, often involving the same ballroom where the dinner was held last Saturday. You have to book hotels in Washington for major events like this months, sometimes years (yes, years) in advance. I bet the Correspondents have the 2027 dinner already booked, maybe even the 2028.

And then there are the logistics for such a dinner. All of the businesses and organizations involved (to say nothing about WHCA members and their guests) who also have their activities scheduled over the next month. Any reprise of this dinner would involve many fewer people, I would guess. People have other things to do.

And then there is the cost. I don’t know how this dinner is paid for, but can you imagine the cost of putting on a dinner for 2,000 at the Washington Hilton. Especially, this dinner? Would you expect the WHCA (how much money do journalists have these days?) to foot this bill again? Do you expect the Hilton will not only make arrangements for the dinner to occur over the next month and, because all of this was “their fault” (even if you could argue that it was, which would be hard), they should pay for the Second Coming of our president to their midst? Is there insurance that covers cancellation or disruption based on a shooter? I doubt it, but obviously I don’t know.

And then there are the security issues. How would security be handled at a repeat event when the discussions seem to be revolving around security deficiencies at the event that was so abruptly disrupted? It will take time to devise a new security plan, and since the security breach apparently involved the failure of the hotel and the failure of the original security plan to check to make sure that those people staying at the hotel were not bringing in weapons.

So, all of this makes it very unlikely that there will be a second White House Correspondents’ dinner within the next four weeks.

And besides this, what about the general relationship between the president and the correspondence that cover him in the White House. It is obviously not the best, he has distorted the allowable press corps to enable right wing news organizations to take the place of many mainstream or left leaning organizations, and (as recently as the day after the aborted dinner – i.e., yesterday morning) Trump continues to berate the press and individual journalists in vicious and completely unacceptable terms. Yes, just yesterday, after agreeing to be interviewed on Sixty Minutes, Trump treated Nora O’Donnell as a drill sergeant treats a recruit only because she asked him something about the shooter’s purported “manifesto” contained in communications to family members.

In the meantime, there is a war going on the Trump has started but can not stop, there is corruption at the highest levels of our government, the Department of Homeland Security has still not been funded for the current fiscal year, our weaponry has been depleted and our budget deficit is growing precipitously, and we could go on and on.

I am going to stop here. Enough on this subject. You should now that when I sat down this morning, this was not going to be my topic at all (other than a brief mention), but that I was going to talk about the remarkable session yesterday we, at the Haberman Institute for Jewish Studies, had with Dr. Daniel Matt on aspects of Jewish mysticism and the Zohar. You don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Levy’s Rye Bread (isn’t that the old slogan?), and you don’t have to be a Jewish mystic to enjoy listening to Daniel Matt talk about the Zohar.

Some other time.