Monday, May 01, 2006

Stephen Colbert's Big Brass Balls


Saturday evening featured guest speaker Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner. He had about 25 minutes of stinging satire on Dubya Bush and the fawning incompetent press corps. He did this right to their faces to an increasingly frozen audience. Only Justice Scalia was hysterical at Colbert's use of Italian gestures when talking about him. So far the press has decided the best way to treat this is to ignore it.

Peter Daou has the best overall response and many links. More from Crooks and Liars. YouTube has the entire roasting in three parts. E&P: "The President not amused?"
Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."
Many, many more zingers in the bit. There is already a Thank You Stephen Colbert website up. Why don't you thank him for speaking "truthiness to power"?

A huge round-up of reactions from both sides at the Moderate Voice.

One of my favorite parts: "I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible -- I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical. And though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be it Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe in infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior."

ADDED - It Was Neither Funny Nor Respectful, Not Colbert but Bush.

Froomkin blogs.



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