30
Apr
The press at play: “Bush Twins” mesmerize, Colbert terrifies
To read some newspaper accounts of Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, you’d never know Stephen Colbert was there. In fact, the press are treating Colbert much like they did the indications that president Bush was lying in the runup to the Iraq invasion: they’re pretending he doesn’t exist.
Bush, on the other hand, is very much in evidence in the stories. He brought along a double, who pretended to be the inner Bush, and they said some funny things and got a warm response from the crowd.
Of course the double, Bush impersonator Steve Bridges, didn’t really represent the inner Bush. He didn’t bomb anyone, or go looking for banned weapons in the president’s pants. He didn’t bring a copy of the Constitution to shred into confetti while the president spoke; he didn’t order a warrantless wiretap on Colbert (although the actual president may have done after the show).
In short, he didn’t do any of the things the inner president does while the outer one shambles and “aw shucks” along. The writer knew better than that.
In the New York Times, a feature on the dinner, headlined “At Annual Correspondents’ Dinner, a Set of Bush Twins Steal the Show,” doesn’t mention Colbert, focusing entirely on the comedy team of Bridges and Bush.
Last Friday was the dress rehearsal with Mr. Bridges in the White House family theater. Mr. Bartlett and Joshua B. Bolten, the new White House chief of staff, attended, but many other senior aides were kept out to keep it secret. Mr. Bush and Mr. Bridges did two straight run-throughs.“I was so nervous,” Mr. Bridges said yesterday by telephone from California, after a morning flight from Washington. “I had a twitch in my eye for two weeks.” The session soon dissolved into laughter, but Mr. Bush was instructed to keep a straight face during the actual performance.
It was at the dress rehearsal, Mr. Parvin said, that Mr. Bush suggested adding a line for Mr. Bridges that the first lady “is hot,” and Mr. Bridges suggested following up with “muy caliente,” or “very hot.” Both additions were in the final routine.
Other lines came from Mr. Bridges’s regular spoof of Mr. Bush, like “Yes, my fellow Americans, in the words of Sigmund Freud, ‘I have a dream.’ ” One line, delivered by Mr. Bush, was particularly topical: “I’m feeling pretty chipper tonight — I survived the White House shake-up.”
“Senior aides were kept out to keep it secret.” Good thing Bridges isn’t a CIA agent.
The only nods Colbert gets from the Times come courtesy of wire service reports picked up by the paper. Reuters described his performance in somewhat colorless terms.
Stephen Colbert, of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report,” wrapped up the evening delivering a routine as the bombastic pundit character of his satiric talk show.No one was safe from his sarcastic barbs.
“Fox News gives you both sides of the story — the president’s side and the vice president’s side,” he said to muted laughs.
An AP account of Colbert’s performance is only slightly less drab.
The featured entertainer was Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show ”The Colbert Report” often lampoons the Washington establishment.”I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq,” Colbert said in a typical zinger.
He also paid mock tribute to Bush as a man who ”believes Wednesday what he believed Monday, despite what happened Tuesday.”
Muy caliente.
The Washington Post carries the same two wire service reports. A Google News search for the terms “Bush” and “Colbert” returns a result from only one major US paper, one of the wire service stories in the Post, among the top twenty. The top result, ironically, is a Peter Daou article entitled “Ignoring Colbert: A Small Taste of the Media’s Power to Choose the News.” Our own post from earlier in the day is nested under Daou’s. (Your results may vary: the listings change regularly).
Colbert was, of course, screamingly funny, if you weren’t the president or the press or anyone who harbors favorable sentiment toward either. If you’re a Bush supporter, he described you as “backwash.” If you’re the president, he celebrated your mutual existence in “the no fact zone.” And if you’re the press, he told you how you look from the outside:
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.
Fiction, or what Colbert was doing.
Outside the institutional press, and to a lesser extent overseas, Colbert is getting an enormous amount of attention. A “Thank you, Stephen Colbert” site was up and running within hours after the video of his performance began to circulate earlier today, and has accumulated some 3,000 thank you notes as of this writing. More than 500 people have clicked out from our relatively low-traffic site to view the two-part video we linked to only five or six hours ago; other sites with 30 or 40 times our traffic linked to the videos considerably sooner than did we.
We can expect that newspaper reporters and editors will face Colbert-related questions during online chats over the next week or two. The odds are good that the Washington Post’s Dan Froomkin will devote some pixels to the festivities, and the Post’s Howard Kurz, who more or less embodies Colbert’s version of the press, might muster up the energy to do a drive-by on the performance.
But for the most part, the press will think it safer to ignore Colbert than to fire back and risk yet more ridicule. Because make no mistake, they’ve been mugged in their own back yard, they’ve been mugged during the course of the single greatest bit of political satire in at least three decades, and they’re hurting over it.
“Make, announce, type.”
UPDATE: An indication of how wide Colbert’s fan base is, or how narrow Bush’s is, shows up in our site’s access logs. When I checked a few minutes ago, 36 of the previous 100 visitors who arrived via Google News searches for some element of the press dinner were from countries other than the US, representing every continent except Antarctica. Heloooo, McMurdo …
UPDATE 2: The Post’s Dan Froomkin did indeed devote some space to Colbert, in the process pointing out the deafening Colbert-related silence from other political reporters, specifically Elisabeth Bumiller at the New York Times. We’ll be adding some links to coverage from other sources later in the day.
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It was so poignantly funny. I am also curious as to what the press will say about Colbert’s roasting of Bush and the press. He turned them into a crisp. Many people are shocked and bitter over it but just as many are grateful for Colbert’s performance. The truth never hurt so good.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:24 pmFrank, I’m inclined to think they’re just going to ignore it. Most of the reporters there can’t pretend they thought it was funny because they’re on tape looking pole-axed, and it’s not a winnable fight: anyone who complains will look like a fool. So the safest thing to do is pretend it didn’t happen or give it the one or two bland lines the wire services did. But I am looking forward to Froomkin and a few other press types who will have understood the sheer splendor of the moment.
April 30th, 2006 at 9:43 pmI’m sorry Mr.Stewart, while i will always put your skewering of the bobbsey twins on crossfire as one of my all-time favourite moments on air, Mr. Colbert has now surpassed that mark.I still can’t believe he pulled it off.The silence from the media is quite deafening isn’t it…bunch of frightened sheep.Let’s see, Maher,Stewart and now Colbert, can there be a fourth musketeer in the wings.
April 30th, 2006 at 10:36 pmAs a “non-American”, even I found Colbert’s performance funny, brutally satirical perhaps, but hilarious nevertheless. I have been cruising the blogosphere for the past few hours and the only ones who seemed “pissed-off” for whatever reason is the “backwash”. Almost everyone else termed it funny. The ones who didn’t find it funny reasoned that so because it was perhaps too close to the truth to be a subject matter for laughter.
April 30th, 2006 at 11:46 pmAs for the MSM ignoring it, I was a little surprised at first to see them toe the party line in the ‘land of the free and the brave’, but I guess it takes cojones as big as Mr. Colbert’s to mention it.
This is more proof of the liberal mainstream media running the press.
May 1st, 2006 at 12:37 amHey, thanks for the link to the Thanks Stephen site. I hadn’t seen that before.
Perhaps I’ve been naive up until this point, but as of now, I am deeply disillusioned with the media. It’s shocking how they’re ignoring this!
May 1st, 2006 at 2:24 amSpot on assessment of the Colbert business. The MSM is def sulking, it’s always so frustrating. Whenever the media are skewered they don’t cover it. . . doh! It’s so headline ready too “Bush Not Amused” etc.
May 1st, 2006 at 4:44 amBirds of a feather flock together - Joint-Presidents of the United States -
I thought you might enjoy this comment I made about George’s picture in the Reuters Blog today.
Here is the picture, comment and story of the White House Correspondents Association dinner on Saturday night and my comments…
http://blogs.reuters.com/2006/04/30/double-dubya/
If you follow the link Stoomzee with the comment or visit my website Page -7 Politics & Government, you might further enjoy my explanation of ~ Joint-Presidents of the United States ~
Sincerely and with all due respect,
Kevin McMahon
May 1st, 2006 at 5:30 amStoomzee.com
Northport, Long Island, NY
Eddie, that was sarcasm, yes?
Stoomzee, thanks for the links. I had no idea Reuters was running news blogs.
May 1st, 2006 at 8:34 amWell, we now know the right-wing & MSM spin on Colbert’s performance:
1. It didn’t happen.
2. If it did happen, it wasn’t funny.
3. If it was funny, it was disrespectful.
I guess if they eventually have to cover it, we’ll be treated to clips of a tearful Laura Bush saying how shocked and hurt she was by the personal attack on her husband.
May 1st, 2006 at 8:45 amWe are two of your most loyal fans of every show of “The Colbert Report”
May 1st, 2006 at 11:23 amwant you to know that we are proud, delighted, entertained and thrilled with you performance at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner.
You are performing a much-needed service to our nation, in the spirit of Jonathan Swift of England with your biting satire against our current oppressive administration’s regime.
Being a retired teacher and Methodist preacher, we are aware of the dangers in our national situation. Please keep up your good work knowing of our prayers and support.
Stephen Colbert “bombed” the same way Andy Kaufman used to “bomb”. Of course you won’t “get it” if you’re the butt of the joke. The video clearly shows that the audience, both behind and before the dais, was seething in reaction. This in itself makes Colbert’s performance newsworthty. That the MSM chose to virtually ignore it only makes Colbert’s insights more accurate.
May 1st, 2006 at 1:33 pmI am putting a link to this great piece on my blog, the Bossa Nova Barbeque. And I concur about Stephen’s fan base: my numbers have soared in the past 48 hours as a result of what I have written about him. I myself just finished a piece about the so-called “liberal media” and their utter unwillingness to write anything remotely resembling truthiness. The link to this site is in the title of the post. Keep up the great work.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:20 pmBTC, thanks for keeping this alive for a few minutes longer than the press would have preferred. As usual, he was outstanding. The 60 Minutes piece on Colbert was icing on the cake.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:43 pmColbert was absolutely hilarious. But I hope he will be careful. It has been said that the Bush family does not appreciate being mocked in any way and can be vengeful. If they decided to do anything it would be in such a way as to keep them in the clear. It would be a shame to see such a satirical talent lost to us. So please Stephen, be careful.
May 1st, 2006 at 2:48 pmI believe the press just couldn’t take the heat. Everything I have read from their side of the aisle says he bombed. From my point of view it was the funniest thing I had ever witnessed. We were rolling on the floor. Not only funny but speaking truth to power.
May 1st, 2006 at 3:35 pmLet’s hope he doesn’t get “suicided” like Hunter Thompson.
May 1st, 2006 at 7:45 pmThanks for telling it like it is! Colbert was brilliant.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:35 amWow…we live in such an amazing country to be able to watch 20 some minutes of an entertainer bashing the most powerful man in the world. I oftentimes take it all for granted, but wonderful liberals like Colbert remind me how very fortunate we Americans are. God Bless the USA! And God Bless us brilliant liberals!!
May 3rd, 2006 at 6:38 pmIn 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.
May 4th, 2006 at 8:02 amRichard Cohen’s piece on this was a throwback … to his anti-French column before the war. Obscene under the usual three part test (offensive/self-gratifying is practically a sexual sense/lacking serious value). His attack on blogs made it a perfect piece of crud. Not to worry though … in three or four years, he (after everyone else) will admit he was wrong.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:16 pmHi, Joe. Yes, that was Cohen at his unfortunate peak. Colbert the Bully.
May 4th, 2006 at 1:51 pmIt is funny, reading those clips and then watching cspan’s footage on google, you see that the newspapers painted a very dismal picture of his performance. of course the laughter seemed muted when comparing it to his voice over the microphone. it was when i actually saw the audience that i realized more folks then i expected were laughing as hard as i was. lol there were the occasional tight lipped individuals, but over all the audience seemed to receive him warmly. it’s like these days one can not trust what they read, or maybe that isn’t something new at all…
May 6th, 2006 at 3:49 pm