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Colbert New Comic-in-Chief
scottzak writes "Hail to the Chief! Stephen Colbert addressed the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday (attended by the President, the elite of Washington politics, and the White House Press Corps) and told the truth. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped. The live audience gasped. Scalia laughed his ass off. You want to see a brilliant comic display some real courage? Look no further. Enjoy the reaction shots, and Colbert's audition for Press Secretary job." The BBC covers the act just prior to Mr. Colbert's, where the President and a look-alike took turns making fun of his speaking skills.
What's sad is, once he does say it how it is, he loses the room...
Funnypics
Bush violates the law and constitution. OH SNAP! I'm a "Bush Basher".
Ignore the fact that Bush violates the law and constitution.
Kill the messenger, ignore the message. I'm sure those are tomorrows talking points.
The best part about this is that the funnier and more incisive he gets, the quieter and quietier and quieter the laughter gets.
Too bad that nobody will hear about this except the people who read Slashdot, the people who watch Comedy Central, and the people who watch C-SPAN on saturday night. In other words, the exact people who are most likely to already agree with what Colbert is saying. Everybody else, well, everybody else will just hear about that part the BBC covered-- you know, the bit where Bush demonstrated what a down-to-earth, wouldn't-you-just-love-to-have-a-beer-with-me kind of guy he was by getting up on stage with a body double and deliberately mispronouncing words.
Which means Colbert's little song and dance here doesn't really matter. All right, so somebody criticized the president to his face for the first time in four years. (No, Kerry at the 2004 debates doesn't particularly count.) Okay, so what? The 32% who still approve of Bush's job-- who are, after all, the only people who matter-- won't hear about this, and if they hear about it, they won't listen. The 2006 elections still will go to the Republicans, because even if everyone gets pissed off at Mr. Bush, they still won't like the incompetent, spineless democrats any better.
The Republicans will continue to hold congress after 2006; nobody will ever investigate any of the laws Bush has broken; Bush will quietly leave office in 2008, Iraq will someday eventually get electricity and running water, and talk show hosts and revisionists will nostalgically talk about what a great leader Bush was until nobody remembers him as anything other than a second Reagan. (And how well do you remember the Reagan administration? Yup, that's what I thought.) Nobody will remember that freakish, depressing third half of the Bush presidency where major american cities were destroyed and the President was admitting to impeachable offenses on national television and nobody did anything about it. Everyone will just remember that first, inspiring part of the Bush presidency after september 11, when Bush said that God told him how to lead the country, and everyone believed him.
I take it you really don't understand what you saw...? The lack of response in the audience is the important part - it isn't indicative of him "bombing" in this case.
And I'm not sure you got the point of Colbert's monologue. I don't believe he was playing for laughs. I think he saw an opportunity to actually put his money where his mouth was, and took it. You are right. It was out of place for the event, but I think that was exactly the point. Letting everyone laugh comfortably while we prosecute a war in another country without being able to answer a fundamental question like "why did we go to war" wasn't on his agenda. And it shouldn't be. Good for him, I say.
God Bless George W. Bush. God Bless America.
Hey, fuckwit, who are YOU to tell God what to do? DEMANDING of God something? The PROPER phrase is, "MAY God bless XXX".
That is key. Anyone who demands things of God is a shithead. Whenever you see someone saying "God bless" without the proper qualification... well, you can safely discard anything else they have to say, for they are truly spiritually retarded, and are probably nothing more than a drone.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Colbert's routine reminded me a lot of Jon Stewart's performance at the Oscars (one of the only times I've ever even watched). What I saw that night was a decent and funny performance delivered to a crowd that was so full of itself that it could not emit a laugh. They were present for awards sans comedy.
In Colbert's case, though, the crowd was most certainly attending for comedy. However, I think their blank stares were the result of hearing something they'd rather not. The dinner is always a roast and fun is always "poked." But... I think perhaps this went to a new level.
I see one of two possibilities. One is that Colbert misjudged his audience and that's why his routine did not do well. Or, Colbert recognized that he was given a rare opportunity to speak directly to the President, in a public setting, and in a place where the President could not simply leave. *If* that is the case, then yes, it did take balls. Huge balls.
Of course, unless Colbert actually comes out at some point in the future and makes known what his intentions were that night, we may never really know.
I have to wonder what I might do in such a situation. Like many Americans, I do hold a certain respect for the office of the President, or for any elected office, I suppose. It's that respect which keeps most (though it seems less so lately) political discourse civil. But surely there comes a time when transgressions like Bush's reach a point where you need to take a stand, respectable office or no.
Maybe this dinner was one of those times.
Elrond, Duke of URL
"This is the most fun I've had without being drenched in the blood of my enemies!"-Sam&Max
I don't know. I think this played on many levels. On one level, you are right... he's Steven Colbert playing a commentator who believes he's praising the president, but the praise backfires and the results are comedic. Ha, ha, he's lampooning O'Reilly.
On a level deeper, though, Steven gets to say thing as the commentator that he couldn't just stand up in front of that crowd and say. He gets to say what he really believes, only say it in a way that's funny when coming out of the mouth of Colbert the pundit.
Example: he's asking the president why he wasn't considered for the part of the white house press secretary. At which point, he stares right at the audience and says "I have nothing but contempt for these people". Look at his face when he says it. He's playing it for laughs, but he's deadly serious. He has nothing but contempt for those people. Meanwhile, they laugh... they LAUGH... because ha, ha.. he's lampooning O'Reilly. Except he's not.
You can see that same mechanism in effect in several of his "jokes". He really is pushing wickedly vicious attacks at the president and the press, and they can't decide whether to laugh or not, because they aren't sure what level to take it at.
I thought it was brilliant -- he was able to attack them savagely, and still come across like he was tossing softballs. Amazing.
Unfortunately you may have watched so much television with laugh tracks that unless people are laughing you can't distinguish funny--I feel for you, and don't worry, you're not alone.
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Yeah, but why can't we take a break, relax, and go to a nice dinner
because our soldiers can't take a break, relax, and go to a nice dinner.
because the families who have lost husbands, wives, daughters, and sons to the war can't take a break, relax, and go to a nice dinner.
because the Iraqi people can't take a break, relax, and go to a nice dinner.
because reality doesn't stop for everyone else while you're safe at home.
I'll say it here, but it applies to many many of the other posts I've read today - this is not a great political statement he has made. It was a comedian act, in an event that hosts such act every year. He's a comedian
You seem to imply that because he is a commedian this is not a great political statement.
That is a complete non sequitur. If you really believe it, do please adduce some evidence for it. Please note that the proposition you must defend is not "some commedians are incapable of great political statements" but rather "ALL commedians are incapable of great poltiical statments, and NO commedy act is capable of great political statement." I believe, given the many counter-examples, you will find it very, very hard to create a rational, fact-based defense.
Many commedians have made great political statements, and Stephen Colbert has just taken first place in their ranks. He spoke the raw truth, in public, to the face of power. With an administration that has lied and obfuscated its way through six disasterous years of unnecessary deficit and unjustified war, that is a great and wonderful thing.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
"When Cronkite read the number of soldiers killed in Vietnam he was lionized for telling the truth"
... it is likely the forged letter was essentially accurate, the commanding officers secretary said its content was quite plausible. Its just most of the incriminating evidence in his record was most probably purged by Bush operatives, something that was especiallay easy to do when Bush was governor of Texas and commander in chief of the Texas national guard. Rather was of course driven out of the CBS anchor chair and the producer was fired.
In fact the country had already largely turned on the Vietnam war by the time he acted. It would have been a bit braver if he had exposed Vietnam as a failed policy a few years earlier. Cronkite did help take down LBJ but the war continued on for another 5 years before it was lost, so he didn't really make much of a difference.
In some respects it feels kind of like Iraq where the media didn't let out a whimper when the foundation was laid for the bloody and expensive disaster, they waited until it was obviously a bloody mistake and now they are piling on against it now that its too late to do anything about it (i.e. the two options now being stay the course or withdraw and watch Iraq explode in civil war).
"When Edward R. Murrow brought down McCarthy he was lionized."
On Murrow you are totally misrepresenting reality. Murrow, Friendly, "See it Now" and others at CBS paid a dear price for what they did.
Don Hollenbeck, was another CBS news anchor who lauded Murrow's attack on McCarthy on air. He was eviscerated by right wing editorials for the next 3 months and branded as a communist. He then committed suicide in a gas oven.
Murrow and Friendly continued attacking sacred cows in that 1954-1955 season, including an expose on a Texas land scandal that infuriated their main sponsor, Alcoa, which pulled their funding and put the nail in the coffin for "See it Now".
Many of the people involved in the McCarthy expose were laid off.
Walter Pally and CBS corporate felt Murrow and Friendly overstepped their bounds on McCarthy and throughout their controversial 1954-1955 season and that they were making news rather than reporting it. They pulled See It Now from their prime time slot and stuck them on Sunday afternoon in a form of putting them out to pasture as they ran out their contract.
Murrow eventually became completely disillusioned with TV news, precisely because of the pressures to make it entertaining, profitable, to avoid controversy and to avoid alienating corprate sponsors.
What Murrow and Friendly did was brave beyond belief but the retaliation that followed created a precedent that served to discourage journalists and networks from attacking the power that be, especially when it involved their sponsors.
In a more recent CBS precedent there is Dan Rather's recent attempt to expose George W's borderline criminal National Guard record. Unfortunately they relied on a forged letter to support their story which was wrong. But
"they will hire some real reporters and we will receive some real news"
It would run completely counter to how news networks work today. They are competing for audience with 50 other TV channels, games, internet, etc. The only successful news shows are going to be the most sensationalist ones, pandering to what their audience wants to see, and most of their audience wants to see celebrity scandals. Most audience also have a massive case of cognitive dissonance, they want their news to reinforce their world view not disrupt it. Thats why Fox is the #1 cable network, lots of people watch Fox because Fox says what they want to hear, America #1 in particular.
Journalists can only attack Presidents when their poll numbers are in the toilet because then they know the majority of their audience wants them to attack the President then. When a President's poll numbers are riding high they generally dont touch them. Journalists are at the head of the like supportinh going to war as long as their is a patriotic fervor whipped up for it, and then journalists can turn against the war when it turns long, bloody and costly and the public has already started to turn on it, like Cronkite did.
@de_machina