I'm assuming most of you have seen Stephen Colbert's fantastic speech at the White House Correspondents Dinner last weekend. If not, you can check it out here. Go on, I'll wait:
Full link here, I think.
I can't decide if the AP intended this as an intentional whack job when they invited him to speak, or if everyone was just unbelievably clueless. Regardless, Colbert managed - in 20 short minutes - to shred not only the President, but the lickspittles in the media who've allowed his crimes to go unchallenged for six years.
The 15 of you who read this blog (18 when the Chron links to it) have grown used to the occasional barb flung Bush's way, and there are plenty of other bloggers out there with a much greater readership doing a much better job. But Colbert managed to singlehandedly tear down much of the sycophantic and misleading bullshit surrounding the current Administration on a national stage, and he did it with the President sitting not 15 feet away. The man has, as Bullet Tooth Tony might say, "big brave balls."
Predictably, the apologists have come out in force to describe how Colbert "bombed." Right. The reporters, military officials, and government lackeys in the audience weren't laughing because he had them dead to rights. If someone on stage was calling me out as a toadying coward (the WH press corps) or a spineless yes-man (the military), I probably wouldn't be laughing either.
Unless I was Antonin Scalia, apparently. That boy ain't right.
Colbert's performance was, I think, the single greatest display of the use of irony I've ever seen in political satire. I stand amazed.... It was just fookin' wonderful....
Wow. That was so worth the 30 minutes I just spent watching. Was it just me, or could you hear a pin drop in that room? I would love to show that to my high school class; we've been studying irony and satire. Could there be a better example? I'd probably lose my fucking job.
By the way, it's been pulled from youtube.com, but I found it at http://throwawayyourtv.com (the quality sucks, but it's there)
Well said.
Someone finally deflates both the administration and the co-conspirators in the media with keen satire, and yet that same media can bury the event. It's almost hopeless.
If AP expected Jay Leno The Cable Edition they were sadly mistaken. The press has become so wrapped up in their own ego they can't smell their own sh$t.
Colbert not only pushed their noses in it, but did it with an artless smile.
Definitely a hero of our times.
sheer brilliance. you can tell, too, right after he makes that jibe about standing on the bank of computers and before moving on to jesse jackson, that he's really evaluating whether he should move forward. he's a brave man, and i am in a much better mood now that i've watched that clip.
and the audition tape was glorious!
"At the recent Washington Correspondents' Dinner, master comedian Stephen Colbert performed magnificently. With the rapier of wit and the mace of truth, he respectively skewered and censured the presidency of "dum'ass botch".
Talk about wonderful lagniappe! Mr Colbert made that nincompoop's lap dogs in our national conventional media run for cover with their tail between their legs. And that's not all our man accomplished.
Tucked away in his address to the dinner's flabbergasted attendees, like a ticking time bomb, there was an 'easter egg', which we had absolutely . . . here 'we' is a polite nod . . . NO right to expect. Like the Easter Bunny in a mischievous mood, Mr Colbert camouflaged a bon mot, so profound as to approach philosophical.
oh, before I reveal Mr Colbert's casual accomplishment, I should like to preface with a caveat. The appropriate interpretation of that remark requires sagacity an-- . . ."
oh, alright (!) already, I'll admit it. The above text is meant to serve as "bait" for the dear Reader's curiosity. Yes, I would like people to visit my blog. And why not?! The average visitor is bound to find one or two startling insights. What's more, it's a good bet that more than a few visitors will discover that I evoke with the written word thought, hitherto more, well, tantalizing than articulated.
toodles
...../
.he who is known as sefton
http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2006/04/rehabilitation-of-and-by-and-for-right.html
. . . oh, yeah, I should add that the full title for that post is "rehabilitation of and by and for the right wing" . . . by the bye, depending on visitor's essentiality, one might be either heartened or dismayed by one, or two, of my easter eggs.
The same thing happened to Jon Stewart, although on a smaller scale, when he hosted the Oscars. If you don't like the snarkiness of the Daily Show, why would you hire these guys as the hosts? And btw, I loved Colbert's dig about Valerie Plame, "oops, Joe Wilson's wife."