Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Stephen Colbert, Part II



The President is merely the most important among a large number of public
servants. He should be supported or opposed exactly to the degree which is
warranted by his good conduct or bad conduct, his efficiency or inefficiency in
rendering loyal, able, and disinterested service to the nation as a whole.
Therefore it is absolutely necessary that there should be full liberty to tell
the truth about his acts, and this means that it is exactly as necessary to
blame him when he does wrong as to praise him when he does right. Any other
attitude in an American citizen is both base and servile. To announce that there
must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President,
right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable
to the American public. Nothing but the truth should be spoken about him or any
one else. But it is even more important to tell the truth, pleasant or
unpleasant, about him than about any one else. - Theodore
Roosevelt

Good advise from a good President. Not that many people in the Main Stream Media believe or practice it.

The problem is that Colbert told the truth. The members of the press that attended that night, the ones that got all queasy listening to Colbert, while watching the President go sour, couldn't attack Colbert on content in their columns. So they just decided that he wasn't funny and decided to dismiss him.

So it goes in my favorite paper the Washington Post. Columnist Dan Froomkin started out OK, but his infatuation with White House babe Kristen Silverberg, was his biggest event of the night.

So let me tell you a bit about my night. After exchanging brief pointless
smalltalk with Tony Snow, Dan Bartlett and even George Clooney at the Newsweek
pre-dinner party, I repaired to the ballroom where I found myself sitting next
to -- of all people -- Kristen Silverberg.

Now you may not know who Kristen Silverberg is, but I've been following her
movement through Bush's inner circle for quite a while now. First she was a
campaign worker, then a young aide in the chief of staff's office, then a
high-level policy adviser.

In pretty much any other circumstance, if I had a chance to talk to Kristen
Silverberg, I would grill her about Bush's plans for Iran, or about her mentor
Karl Rove, or on the inner workings of the White House.

But here she was sitting next to me as the guest of a Washington Post White
House correspondent, and it wouldn't have been appropriate. Not to mention,
she's sweet as pie. Heck, I was pushing the limits of propriety by introducing
her to everyone at the table this way: "She's John Bolton's boss!!!"

Howard Kurtz, a staff writer for the Post, I guess staff writer means someone who does four pages of cut and paste, wandered off topic about two-thirds of the way through. But he did make it perfectly clear that he didn't get the coverup memo. And he actually showed two clips of Colbert on his show on CNN.

What's more, you may be interested to know that there's a MEDIA COVERUP of the
Colbert performance. The MSM don't want you to know about how the Comedy Central
man made them look bad! (Never mind that the thing was carried on C-SPAN and the
video is widely available online. I played two clips of Colbert on my CNN show,
so apparently I didn't get the memo.)

I wonder how Teddy Roosevelt would have written it?

BTW, I mean no offence by the cut and paste remark, it's what I do.

Update: Bush aides think he's bigger joke than Colbert. I agree.

Colbert's routine was similar to what he does on his show, the Colbert
Report, but much longer on the topic of Bush, suggesting that the president is
out of touch with reality. Aides and reporters, however, said that it did not
overshadow Bush's own funny routine, which featured an impersonator who told the
audience what Bush was thinking when he spoke dull speech lines.

In fact, some aides crowed over reports that the president easily bested
Colbert in the reviews of both comedy acts.

3 comments:

  1. It comes down to one simple thing. There was nothing in what Colbert said that was a joking matter. It was as if he turned the tables on them and simply spoke truth. What was so shocking to Bush himself, Laura, all the Bushies mouthpieces and Bushie shills was that Colbert simply described their malfeasance, lies, and journalistic failures. There was nothing funny about it.

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  2. I think that the reporters were expecting something indulgent and naughty, along the lines of a roast. That's what the President gave them.
    They weren't expecting earnest political satire. I LOVE Colbert, and he does his thing well, but it was the wrong venue.
    Such incision was lost on that crew, partying it up and full of self-love. It's more of a celebrity-studded affair where you can mix, mingle, and hit on members of the opposite team (no politicians v. press for one night only!), where the biggest stories are usually about who got too drunk to be coherent, or like Froomkin in his blog, who ogled whom.

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  3. I think its great. Its about time someone faced up to him and told him what the world thinks. Our media is bouth and payed for, so we know they won't stand up to him.

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I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally Conservative. I believe that to be so obvious and undeniable a fact that I hardly think any hon. Gentleman will question it.

John Stuart Mill (May 20 1806 – May 8 1873)