Stephen Colbert bagged a rare double as he left the White House Correspondents Association dinner bearing the hides of both George Bush and the collected press.
I hadn’t intended to write about this; thousands of others already have, and I didn’t know what to add. But I do want to urge anyone who hasn’t seen the video of Colbert dismembering the president and the reporters most responsible for covering him to watch it (part one; part two). Pay close attention to the reaction shots: the audience is dazed.
I don’t understand how Colbert secured the gig. Surely someone in the press association must have watched his show, on which he regularly skewers politicians and the press. Perhaps whoever hired him thought he’d tone it down for the occasion. If so, they were grievously, hilariously mistaken.
Among the audience, only actor Lawrence Fishburn and Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia seemed genuinely amused— the latter almost hysterically so. Most of the others were casting about for a hint as to whether or not they should laugh while Colbert took a flensing knife to the president and their own august personages.
I don’t want to spoil the effect by quoting Colbert at length. I will say that the president entered Colbert’s segment smiling and nodding agreeably, and left it looking like an anguished, dessicated lizard. And I’ll leave you with one passage (not the best one).
Here’s how it works: the president makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know – fiction.Because really, what incentive do these people have to answer your questions, after all? I mean, nothing satisfies you. Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, “They’re just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This ship’s not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.
I think I can safely guarantee that Colbert will never again get close to the president, or get into a press dinner without buying a ticket. He was given a once in a lifetime opportunity and unlike most of us, he took full advantage of it. Bravo.
UPDATE: I’ve been advised in no uncertain terms to warn that anyone among the one in six Americans who strongly support the president should not watch the video.
UPDATE 2: A reader has created a site where you can thank Colbert for his service to America.
In my humble opinion: colbert’s tribute should go down as one of the greatest pieces of american political satire. In a sense, he is the Mark Twain of his generation. Politicians, journalists and historians should should study his speech for years to come.
Bummer dude! Colbet’s material on CC is hilarious. But his performance last night was embarrassingly labored, material was weak and he didn’t hit the mark with his delivery. He could have been a lot more balanced in his material (Dems, Reps, Press) too. It seemed he enjoyed it though. And the video, I thought it would never end! Just horrible.
Man, Colbert sucks. I dont care who the president is, this guy is so unfunny. Like that Dennis guy that was on SNL, then flopped in Football, and some crappy show.
It took a fictionalized news character to do the job that the tinselled sycophants in the White House Correspondents’ Association have not been able to do, being too preoccupied spending their time schmoozing up to power and celebrity, which in itself is nothing to laugh about. Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for applying the swift sword to the knife wielding thugs.
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org
For serving as an example, telling it like it is, I’ve thrown together a site to collect thank yous for Mr. Colbert.
Hopefully this site will help boost awareness of this story, which is already being distorted in the mainstream press.
Go over and say thanks.
Portrait of an artist as a faux show/news biz syncophant. Colbert was inspired.
Pedro, Mike: what can I say? You’ve deprived yourselves of the pleasure of what will become an iconic moment in the Bush presidency.
Absolutely hilarious. That guy has balls of brass.
Mr. Colbert, Thank you for your courage. May be the most amazing event in American media history!
What balls! Love you, Stephen!
This shit is sweet. Watching him rip the president was incredible; watching the attendees desperately trying to figure out whether or not to laugh was even better.
Anyone else think the posts by “Pedro” and “Mark” betray a mindset a couple of decades older than what they’re pretending to be? “Bummer dude”? “that Dennis guy that was on SNL”? Let’s not have a cow man….
What Colbert has is balls. And it was nice to see them shoved in the face of people who’ve forgotten what they look like.
The shot of the audience reminded me of footage of that famous meeting of the Iraqi parliament where Saddam Hussein did a roll call of traitors. Nobody wanted to be caught laughing on camera. Anyone ele catch the wiff of Stalinism?
Colbert even pre-empts the lack of reporting on his broadide. What a bunch of sad bitches! All we get on TV is that tired bit with the impersonator.
The audience members looked like a family gathering at Thanksgiving dinner and one of the oblivious children has just stated that yes, they get beat for the slightest of infractions, yes Dad is having sex with the babysitter.
The president and the press got force fed a whole bucket of stewed satirical truth and some of them did not like it one bit.
Stephen has guts and I thought the whole thing was hilarious.
People just can’t take a joke, eh? btw…the president parodying himself should’ve come AFTER the colbert bit…would’ve made the night go better. it was still a good piece. and so what he took the side of the “conservatives” blasting them and the press in the process. liberals are just wimps by nature and it’s already easy to pick oh them, so why waste the energy? Overall good piece.
I have never seen this guy before, but i can tell you this….he was revolting…watching him made me feel as the audience apparently felt ….disgusted….even some on the left felt uncomfortable with this diatribe..i am sure there were those that relished this guy, but then there are those that feel Bush is the enemy of this country…..
to me this guy is bloated with a ton of arrogance….i hope that his performance accompishes one thing…to be considered an irrelevant comic
I was stunned to see that this can still happen in America. The jokes weren’t that funny – to be honest, some were rather bittersweet – but to be four feet away from Bush and telling him all this to his face! Man, that takes cojones. Big brass ones.
The chance of a lifetime and he uses it to be BORING. I’d never heard of this guy, and now I know why. The one funny line was to Mayor Nagin, explaining that D.C. was the Chocolate City “with a marshmallow center”. He should have stopped there, but went on to talk about Mallomars, seasonal cookie, blah, blah, blah. He takes his one good line and grinds it into forgetable boredom. What a loser.
#18 Tim: A few people have said Colbert was boring. I don’t get it. I attribute it to post-traumatic stress disorder.
#19 Weldon: Nope, just boredom. You see, jokes are supposed to make you laugh. Colbert’s irreverence, 4 feet from W, was funny, and took much balls. But his humor was boring and unfunny. Had he, also, taken the time to actually put together jokes that were funny, he would have staged a coup de grace. That is the opportunity he squandered. That is the opportunit he will never get again. He left people feeling sorry for BUSH. (Go figure.) That is why he is a Loser. Comprende? Gore or Kerry would have done a better job. Hell, Jimmy Carter would have done a better job. Colbert blew it, big time.
Tim, I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree. It was obvious that neither president nor press thought he was particularly funny, but they weren’t his target audience, except in the sense that they were his targets and they were in the audience. He was tense, understandably, but he had a number of great lines, and I’m among the many who thought he was screamingly funny.
Stephen Colbert owes me $30! Reading the transcript of the White House dinner had me spit my coffee onto my keyboard and mouse. Twice!
Instant classic!
Alright. We agree. :-) Peace.
Here’s what I wrote at the thank you Colbert site. I don’t think it got posted. It was frustrating.
I almost forgot about the dinner until I was on Daily Kos and saw it mentioned. I turned on C-Span just in time to see Colbert live. It was an amazing performance. Iwatched it three more times on C-Span. I watch the Colbert Report almost every night. It’s great!
This is my first comment. Why did I get a message that I can only post every 15 seconds. I just arrived on the site and haven’t posted anything yet.
stpetepeace
We think he’s funny on his show, but he really bombed at the dinner. I don’t like the pres, but people who laughed at Colbert during the dinner must be desperate to laugh at Bush. The video was an ok idea, but went on way too long.
Steve Bridges and the pres, THAT was funny!
BTW, Chris Rock at the Oscars was also not funny.
LOUD, repetetive, but not clever, which you need to be funny.
Some people don’t get it … Colbert didn’t use his moment to agrandize himself and merely entertain. He used it to satirize and to shame. It was the Lenny Bruce moment of our generation. It was Colbert taking Bush to the whipping post. It took guts and wit. Any comedian could deliver safe insider jokes. Colbert dared to speak the truth.
Bravo!
Are you telling me that Stephen Cobert was joking? I am shocked, truly shocked. I guess I’ll have to stop watching his show. I thought it was a serious commentary show like, you know, the O’Reilly Factor. After all, Mr. Colbert interviews congressmen and other serious personalities on his show. Well, as Steve Martin used to say, comedy is not pretty.
Cudos to Colbert.
The “Address” will certainly go down in history.
I equate it to a cross between the famous oratory of William Jennings Bryan, the satire of Mark Twain, and the timeless skewering of H.L. Mencken. Top it off with the brilliant character assumption of Phil Hendrie.
“The chance of a lifetime and he uses it to be BORING. I’d never heard of this guy, and now I know why. The one funny line was to Mayor Nagin, explaining that D.C. was the Chocolate City “with a marshmallow center”. He should have stopped there, but went on to talk about Mallomars, seasonal cookie, blah, blah, blah. He takes his one good line and grinds it into forgetable boredom. What a loser.”
The Mallomars bit is a running joke on his show, in inside joke, if you will.
How can anyone not find this funny? You must be pretty dense or part of the 35%. Both go hand in hand. Also, how can anyone (#28) have watched his show and actually thought it was real. Ha!!! The jokes on you, just like the guy who hired Colbert for the speech. Go back to watching your O’Reilly BS. Colbert is just to satirically sophisticated for you to even comprehend, so no wonder you don’t think it’s funny. Colbert Rocks and he’s been doiing it for the last 5 years (Daily Show).
In those times when “truth” is a common subject in movies and television, I think Colbert just said the truth about what’s going on: Bush ignoring global warning, being not so intellectually focus, Bush’s harder control on the media (journalist get fired by the news channel when they say something patriotic… and what does patriotic means? patriotic = act the way the president want you to behave)… even though, the control of the media by the American has always been there (as in many countries… it’s a lot better than in countries with dictator, but there’s still a lot more media control in the united states than in most democratic countries. Also, it is true that the USA is very religious… Consequence: religious leaders influence politic and the president try to get religious leaders’ votes… and that’s not I would call “separation of the church and the states”!
Here’s how it works: journalists report the news… if the government don’t like what they hear, they will give indirect penalties to the CEO of the news corporation… then the CEO will have to fire the journalists for being inappropriate. If the news corporation resist, all the other news corporations (who are scared of penalties) will say how unpatriotic that news corporation is and the latter will eventually have to conform to the others.
Watch “V for Vendetta” movie… You’ll understand what’s happening to USA.
Bush is a “doomsday” politician with high economic (which is good) and military (which can be scary) interest.
So… Start wars = Get votes and get popular = More money for the USA and for his family.
The problem is not being republican… It is being for Bush. Voting conservative doesn’t mean WAR. Voting for Bush means to go WAR. Liberals and conservatives might go to war or not for some reason. We should rather link the military orientation to the leaders rather than the political party.
Go see the statistics about Bush’s popularity: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/blogphotos/Blog_Bush_Approval_May_2004.jpg
No comments.
Even though, I think what Colbert say is the cold hard cruel truth… It must be very humiliating for the president to be there watching some insulting person. I empathize with the president in the situation. Colbert is cruel… Humiliating… That’s the same technique that was used by the Bush’s “concentration camp”! So he’s not better than Bush in that way.
Colbert is funny. His show has very high ratings and checks on the internet, people love him and the speech he made (although media hate him now!). People who were attacked by him (including the Washing Post) will say he’s not funny.
Final note: Colbert said the cruel truth, but it must been very humiliating for the president and the media people. It was very inappropriate, but at the same time it’s a wake up call for the president and the media.