Stephen Colbert is Apollo Creed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Good for him and yay for us.
Right about now, Mark Smith, the White House Correspondents Association’s outgoing president is probably thinking some very unkind thoughts about his successor Steve Scully and it all has to do with the most underreported story of the weekend – Stephen Colbert’s starring turn as the “featured entertainment” at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner.…
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26 - RedTard
A little overreaction and maybe a little of what could be described as hate, but certainly no one was killed.
27 - Michael J. West
I didn't say you killed anyone; I'm just pointing out that the left by no means has a monopoly on hate.
Incidentally, as I've pointed out elsewhere, I assume you're not counting Hitler among your "leftist genocides" since Hitler wasn't a leftist.
28 - zingzing
once a political party gets to the point where it's killing its own people, it's not really much of a people's party anymore. since definitions of "left" and "right" change from era to era and location to location, i assume that redtard is pretty much referring to so-called "socialist" or "communist"-labeled parties. i don't think that the people of cambodia or the people of the soviet union really got together to elect a bunch of people that would send them off to slave labor/death camps... and i also don't believe that either one of them were true "socialist" governments, nor did they follow what present-day americans consider to be "leftist" ideals.
in fact, current day right-wing ideals like oppressing homosexuals, immigrants and women is a bit more like it... not nearly as bad, but then again, we can't all be hitler.
29 - Dave Nalle
5 of the Greatest 5 Democracies have been started by leftists (including the one you so luckily live in)!
Those who founded this nation were liberals, not leftist. Liberalism is dead in the American left today and the remnants of it live on weakly in the GOP. Those who confuse the socialist populism of the democrats with liberalism need to read up on what real liberals actually believe and how fundamentally incompatible it is with the paternalistic statism of the American left.
Dave
30 - Mark
Notice that REDTARD didn't name the leftists.
31 - Pat Riot
So, Red Tard, do you think the Founding Fathers would like the way GWB is thumbing his nose at the 14th Amendment? They overthrew a king who thought that he was "the decider" for them. They didn't want an imperial presidency.
32 - Hello
The news media is a bunch of gutless cowards.
Bravo, Colbert! and THANK YOU!
33 - Zibbt
The notion that the Correspondent's Dinners aren't covered in the news is a fallacy. When Don Imus spoke at one in 1996, the coverage was immediate and widespread.
34 - JANRU
eX pat in australia - thanks for getting into press and pres - we in australia get more information and news about the U.S. and know more about what the pres and sidekicks are doing - saddens me that my fellow Americans are so ignorant - think you probably - on C Span - informed more than they ever knew before - keep up the good good work - IMPEACH THE MAN
35 - Mark
i wish i had seen it!
36 - DazeyMai
Stephen Colbert, you are my hero! Anyone who thinks Bush enjoyed it every time you punched him "where it hurt most" is pissin' in the wind.
37 - nugget
dave you are incredibly correct on your assessment of liberalism. Classical liberalism is perty much DEAD.
38 - Phillip Winn
#36 and others, have you guys never watched a White House Correspondents Dinner before? Note Colbert's introduction -- it is customary and usual and completely expected for the speakers to roast the President as Colbert does. Bush tells the man "Good job" as he shakes his hand, and seems to be smiling or laughing almost every time the camera shows him.
I'm glad you're all enjoying your adoration or Colbert, and I don't blame you -- he's a comic genius. But stop kidding yourselves that his "speak truthiness to power" act is some unprecendented. The only thing out of the ordinary about it is that it's more funny than these dinners are most years.
39 - Dave Nalle
So, Red Tard, do you think the Founding Fathers would like the way GWB is thumbing his nose at the 14th Amendment? They overthrew a king who thought that he was "the decider" for them. They didn't want an imperial presidency.
By the time the 14th amendment was passed most of the founding fathers had been dead for 40 years or more. I doubt they would care about it one way or another.
As for GWB thumbing his nose at amendments, perhaps you mean the 4th amendment? Last I checked there wasn't one word in there about telecommunications over the public airwaves, and if the FCC can regulate radio broadcasts, why can't the FBI listen to them?
Dave
40 - nugget
the word "genius" sure gets thrown around these days.
41 - Amrita
Ok, this is fast headed towards the familiar terrain of Bush Love/Hate but I thought I'd nip in and re-address the one point that keeps coming up - how much of Colbert did the Press and the Pres take in their stride?
If you wanted it from someone who was there in the flesh and intimately involved, visit comedy central and look up the video for tonight's The Daily Show: opening monologue and the Check in with Colbert segment that airs at the end. Its pretty clear i think. not to mention hilarious.
42 - Michael J. West
Those who founded this nation were liberals, not leftist.
Technically, I think we'd have to say they were radicals.
43 - Dave Nalle
Let's call them radical non-left liberals then. If anything, but modern standards they were radical, conservative liberals, since they wanted to return to an idealized model of past naturalistic government which was basically liberal in nature, and were willing to use radical means to achieve that goal.
Dave
44 - Leftist Pinko Commie
I applaud Colbert. Bush and his criminal crew should get at least what Colbert gave them and more. These crooks get to laugh all the way to the bank, stepping over the dead bodies of American citizens and the nations poor. They'll never understand what an honest hard working American goes through because they really don't give a shit. At the very least, a good lashing by Colbert in a public forum should be their punishment for their stupidity and blind ignorance. Bravo Colbert. I wish we had a million more like you. Maybe we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.
45 - zingzing
radical non-left liberals? radical, conservative liberals? um... you're just throwing words together. i don't think "we" should be calling them anything, because our understanding of their motives is obviously fucked up. everyone wants to claim that the "founding fathers" would be on "our" side (left, right, liberal, conservative, dem, rep, etc, etc) and all that shit, "if they were around today." they aren't around today. politics and the world has changed plenty since their day. their views on minorities, women, homosexuality, abortion, immigration, nearly every damn thing that is important today in politics... their views would be woefully ignorant and backward, laughable from our current perspective. they would have no clue what we are talking about. no fucking clue. so, trying to say what political stripe the founding fathers would follow, in today's terms, if they weren't a bunch of rotting bones in the ground somewhere in virginia, if they didn't wear wigs or write with feathers, if you had any goddamn clue what you were talking about, if they weren't politicians but honest people, if if if... you can't really say anything for sure.
46 - Dave Nalle
adical non-left liberals? radical, conservative liberals? um... you're just throwing words together.
People are complex, so their political beliefs are too complex to be summed up in a single word unless you want to be a simplistic fool.
Zing, I think you write the founding fathers off too easily. They may have been from a different era, but basic principles of good government haven't changed since the days of Socrates. Give Paine or Franklin or Jefferson the contextual background on our modern America and they'd know exactly what was wrong.
There are plenty of people out here today who have that same vision - they just aren't mostly in a position to be listened to and won't be until we have the equivalent of another revolution.
Dave
47 - zingzing
the basic principles of good government have been debated since the days of socrates.
politicians are politicians. they wouldn't know exactly what was wrong any more than our current day politicians do. they'd know it was wrong... but they wouldn't be able to fix it. politics have become too complex, the issues too many, the pov's too far apart.
i think you give them too much credit. they were fumbling about in the dark and left too many problems without solutions. within 70 years we were killing each other off. something was wrong.
48 - JP
Amrita, glad to see BC coverage of this--I missed it live, but the recorded performance is brilliant! His delivery is spot-on, and the fact that he's making the whole audience--and Bush--uncomfortable with his perfectly aimed laser makes it even more fun to watch.
Bravo Colbert!
49 - DazeyMai
I have no idea what our Founding Fathers had in mind. I doubt that solid basic principles of good government exist. But, I do think the following passage taken from Alexander Tyler's "From Bondage to Spiritual Faith" is very indicative of where we have been and where we are headed:
"
From bondage to spiritual faith;
from spiritual faith to great courage;
from courage to liberty;
from liberty to abundance;
from abundance to selfishness;
from selfishness to complacency;
from complacency to apathy;
from apathy to dependency;
from dependency back again to bondage."
The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. Seems we are pretty much on track. I wish I could be around to read "The Rise and Fall of the Great American Empire"...
50 - Dan
OK, thought experiment time. Same event, but with Nixon. Haldeman and Erlichman are in the audience. Colbert magically appears. He has a lot of material - Watergate, the illegal bombing of Cambodia, the Pentagon Papers, Viet Nam, forthcoming indictments, extremely loe approval rates...
Would anyone expect his material to be funny? For the audience to crack up? Would anyone complain about his timing? Would he be accused of going too far?
Now, as then, there is a pall hanging over our country. People are deeply concerned. The legal framework for despotism has been laid by this administration.
What's to laugh about?
51 - DazeyMai
I don't believe it was meant to be funny. I think it was just a clever way to sock it to Bush in a situation where he couldn't respond. I read a bumper sticker yesterday which said "Somewhere In Texas There's A Village Missing An Idiot". Now, that made me laugh...but, the one that said "Be Nice To America Or We will Bring Democracy To Your Country" had a scary ring to it.
52 - NR Davis
That is scary, but it does seem to be the Bushite M.O., doesn't it?
COLBERT FOR PRESIDENT! The man has big brass ones, for sure.
53 - Blue Meanie
Colbert (it's French, bitch) did exactly what he was supposed to do. He stood there in his schtick and laid open the raw wounds of both the Administration and their lap dog lackeys, the WH press corps.
Not only didn't the President like having his feet held so close to the fire, but the Press corps themselves were squirming.
If you didn't find it bitingly amusing, and appropriate satire, odds are you were a target.
Which would explain why the MSM are skipping over it completely.
54 - DazeyMai
NR...I guess we should have known Bush would be looking for a reason to bomb any country when he declared himself a "War President". I will never understand how he came to be the leader of our country. Oh wait, now I remember...Jeb and Katherine! That was a strong signal that he is "above the law"....at least in his opinion.
55 - Dave Nalle
politicians are politicians. they wouldn't know exactly what was wrong any more than our current day politicians do. they'd know it was wrong... but they wouldn't be able to fix it. politics have become too complex, the issues too many, the pov's too far apart.
Wrongo. You clearly don't get it at all, Zing. Plenty of people know exactly what's wrong with our government and even have a good line on how to fix it. The problem is that they lack the will or the honesty or the integrity to do it. Or else thye aren't in a position of power where they could do anything to fix the government, and aren't likely to get there specifically because they lack the qualities of corruption which can get them into office.
Dave
56 - The Fifth Dentist
I just finished watching Colbert's routine and I must say that it was a thing of beauty. It took massive balls to eviscerate the president from a distance of 5 feet. Colbert is my hero.
57 - NR Davis
Mr. Nalle speaks truthiness in #55.
58 - zingzing
dave--what does it matter if YOU think that someone (YOU?) have a "good line on how to fix it" if you don't have the ability to do anything about it? at that point, it's just another opinion in a line of opinions, a mob of them, that matter far less than if hillary c is sexy or if bush can say "new clear."
you say exactly what i do, read it again, but you say it differently. i say, maybe they know what is wrong, but they wouldn't be able to fix it. you say, they know how to fix it, but they wouldn't be able to fix it. see that last phrase in both those sentences? exactly the fucking same aren't they?
so... really, if i don't get it, you don't get it either. but i think we both get it. i just realize that it's not just "corruption" that gets in the way, it's politics itself. it's not an individual thing, it's the way the fucking world works. so don't tell me i'm wrong when we come to the same conclusion. makes you look silly.
59 - CMS
Youtube has taken down the colbert segment of the dinner, citing "copyright infringemet". Yet the UNfunny "comedy" duo of Bush and Faux-Bush remains.....Maybe cspan only allows a certain amountof copyright infringement? Or maybe the TRUTHINESS HURTS....
60 - skipaway
Washington Post...
The White House Correspondents' Association announced that faux blowhard pundit Stephen Colbert , star of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," will entertain real Washington egomaniacs at the annual dinner in April. "His whole persona is skewering the self-important," said association President Mark Smith of AP Radio. "What isn't perfect about having him skewer 3,000 of America's most self-obsessed people?"
....
I think Mark Smith was in this with Colbert.
61 - Jasmine &
I think it speaks volumes that this was on youtube within hours, and it's already been appearing across myspace bulletins. So the young people care...Now if we could just get into voting booths.
62 - Scott Butki
I put a link to your column and to the Colbert video at my
new piece on the Daily Show.
Great job.