O’Brien in Beverly Hills, Calif. last December. (Getty Images/Mark Davis)

Conan O’Brien, the one-time heir to Johnny Carson’s throne until he was usurped by his large-mandible-sporting predecessor, will do something nearly as ignominious later this year. O’Brien was announced today as the featured entertainment at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner, the annual circlejerk that draws out the national media at its most navel-gazing, and ships in dozens of Hollywood-famous people who think we actually give a shit about what they have to say about the state of the nation’s affairs.

It’s actually O’Brien’s second go-around at the job. He last performed at the correspondents’ dinner in 1995 as the fresh-faced host of NBC’s Late Night:

In the 18 years since he last hosted, O’Brien was promoted, then ejected, by the peacock network. Meanwhile, the dinner itself has continued to metastasize into an entire weekend of fancy-pants side events, glossy one-off magazines, Internet slideshows, and other ephemera that turn this city from a mild-mannered boomtown into a low-grade celebrity fuckfest.

But, hey, at least the White House Correspondents Association, which is currently having a hissy fit over not being allowed to watch President Obama and Tiger Woods play golf together, invited someone whose performance will likely get praised by the Internet. It’s not like they invited Jay Leno. Oh, wait. Leno performed in 2010, just months after wresting The Tonight Show back from O’Brien.