Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report" was a guest speakers at Saturday's White House Correspondents Dinner. The dinner is basically a way for the rich and powerful politicians to rub elbows with the rich and famous and the press.
The presentation is usually mostly humorous, a kind of tepid roast of the sitting President. This year Bush did a pretty funny bit using a person impersonating him as his inner thoughts. The real moment of the show was at the end though.
Stephen Colbert basically ripped the President and the press corp a new one with his jokes. The move was simply ballsy and amazing to view. I still can't believe he did that. Historically the comedian's job is to cow tow to his audience, a little gotcha humor but mostly keep it safe. Not Colbert. He was noone near safe. He held very little back.
"Listen, let's review the rules. 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." That is just one example of many scathing jokes that was met with tepid responses from the audience. No suprise, the press is notoriousily thin skinned when the spotlight of imcompetence or humor is shined on them.
An interesting aspect of this whole thing is that the press then chose to report very little about this event. From reading press reports you almost wouldn't even be aware that Colbert was the comedic guest of the event. Its like they want to pretend he didn't attend. This of course is the press doing what they do best, the omission of facts. Can't say you lied if you didn't report what occured.
The blogosphere of course can't be fooled. What they will not report, the bloggers of the will happily do for them. Below is a few links including video. Especially note how much you may laugh and how its the opposite of how the audience responded. Sadly I think Colbert will take a hit as the press's usually response to insult is to deny access, which sound vaguely familiar doesn't it?
YouTube.com videos: part 1, part 2, part 3
C-Span's entire video of event is here.
ABCNew.com video, starts with the President's bit, actually worth watching is here.
Transcript is here.
Blogs and other links about the event:
Dan Froomlin, ABCNews
Whiskey Bar
MediaBistro
Crooks and Liars
PublicEye
Editor & Publisher
www.thankyoustephencolbert.org - Pass along your thank you for his routine.
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