Why is entertainment only to amuse or please? It can also send messages that would be unacceptable in a different format. (think court jester).
I thought Colbert was brilliant, but I couldn’t watch it all–the tension was too high for me and the evisceration too insightful. Much as I loathe Bush et al, I was uncomfortable with their comeuppance–but that’s my general pussiness, not a fault of Colbert’s.
If anything, he needs a more worthy opponent.
Now I have to scrub my brain.
Colbert is all in-your-face and roasty, roasty only because he’s secure in the knowledge that his wife isn’t a spy for the United States.
It was like a dream come true. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wished that somehow I could get to tell King George what I thought of him, but Stephen Colbert did it with a lot more style. 
He deserves our thanks. thank stephen
This wasn’t so much a take down of Bush IMO as a take down of the press using a litany of Bush’s f*ups that he rarely has addressed to his face. I thought much of it was very funny, but Colbert wasn’t necessarily playing it for laughs. Maybe he was playing ‘to the back of the room’, for the people that are critical of the press, but he was being sardonic regarding the rest of the room.
He was pointing the finger as much at them as the President. Although I must admit, he spent a lot of time making unflinching eye contact with Bush, not letting him off the hook either.
I say, Mission Accomplished.
I’ve seen Colbert be hysterical, but it wasn’t at the Correspondent’s Dinner. There he was too dead-on and bone-chilling to be really funny, more nervous laughter than anything else. That said I’m among those who also thinks it will go down in the history books and be studied in colleges, not just for the chutzpah but for what it says about freedom of speech. It’s also incredible for the “absurdity squared = reality” weirdness factor: Bush is (in)famous for using “real” media and Q&As as propaganda ops that would make Joey Goebbels blush (whether one of the “come fellate the president” rallies in the heartland or the Gannon Affair or the teleprompted soldiers, etc.) and then the “fake” news person is the first to absolutely point the nail gun and start blasting away- it’s like vintage Tarantino or the best South Park moments in that it’s fucked up and wonderful at the same time. (Of course the really sad part and reason the president wsa furious is that they had told him Stephen Colbert was the real name of Larry the Cable Guy).
As far as it’s humor, I think Stephen Colbert wasn’t particularly funny in the same way that Thomas Nast’s cartoons weren’t particularly funny. Just because they were cartoons didn’t mean they were belly laughers, but they sure were important.
This is almsot too funny to be true. Does anyone have a cite to this?
I think we are in agreement. From a strictly comedic perspective, no, I did not find Colbert particularly funny. But I do think it sends a strong positive statement about the power of free speach in this country.
Unfortunately between Colbert and Stewart, it also sends a strong message of how the much the “fake news” of shows like The Daily Show and “real news” has merged together.
That’s the kind of host they’ll be hiring in the future, after this experience.
The most disturbing thing about that evening were the Twin Bushes (not the daughters but Dubya and the impersonator). While comedically it worked, there’s something I find very disturbing about the president of the United States joking about how stupid, ineloquent and anti-intellectual he is. At the height of the partisan dogfights under Clinton (some of the shots from the right being quite justified), I never once heard his worst enemies question the man’s intelligence or knowledge- to me there’s nothing funny about stupidity in positions of highest power.
Funny, I don’t find that to be an apt comparison at all. I’m sure you have different reasons for not laughing at Thomas Nast cartoons than I do, though.
Which is an indictment of the “real” journalists, not the satirists. If they were doing their jobs, then Colbert and Stewart’s antics wouldn’t be half as necessary.
What’s really interesting is that Colbert’s adress wasn’t any more edgy or daring than his show. It’s the same material from the same character. Freedom of speech isn’t about saying something extraordinary, it’s about saying the stuff you’d say anyway in the face of power.
Probably. Personally I don’t find them funny because they’re way too derivative of Family Guy. I would lay you odds that in the talky versions Boss Tweed would sound just like Stewey.
While I think they would make him sound more like my grandfather.
You didn’t like it? Wow, that is truly shocking! I wonder what Shodan and pkbites thought of it?
Truly, I am on pins and needles.
-Joe
I’m wondering if whoever booked Colbert for this actually had him confused with Bill O’Reilly or any of the other shitstains Colbert’s character parodies.
See above. He was hired for the gig by the Associated Press, not by anyone in the White House.
[emphasis mine]
I am still amazed that one typo way back on the old the World of Warcraft Beta servers has snowballed into such a mainstream term.
I’m also not sure, to this day, how you’re supposed to pronounce “pwn”.
(Or, for that matter, “zomg”.)
I thought it was firmly established, via South Park, that every episode of Family Guy is written by an aquarium tank full of manatees.