Look dudes, a hostile audience can mess up your pacing. Colbert's best jokes were great. (To the generals: You guys aren't retired yet, right?) If the crowd wasn't packed with a media busy sucking up to the pols, just the leftover laughs from jokes like that would have carried him through the weaker jokes and the storyline would be what it should have been: "Colbert killed, but his video sucked."

But here's the real story: It was a historic routine because it's the first time George W. Bush had heard anything like it.

by nick on 05/01/06 02:48 PM

Best part is the look on Dubya's face when Colbert is talking about brush-clearin' on the ranch.

by Ray Wert on 05/01/06 02:51 PM

Valerie -- was it a tit bit nipple-y in there?

by Ray Wert on 05/01/06 03:02 PM

thank god for stephen colbert! without him bush could have lumbered along through the rest of his term blissfully unaware that the entire world hates him more than genital warts. as it is, this routine will surely provoke the kind of soul searching that will bring about the drastic changes this country so desperately needs. and if that's not worth the water-boarding, audits and constant cavity searches colbert has to look forward to, i don't know what is!

by papalovesmambo on 05/01/06 03:12 PM

Hell, the truth hurts, and it's probably the first time Bush has been exposed to it where he's had to take it in public. You can sit down and read a magazine or an op-ed page and not see the reaction of other readers. I just hope Bush can tell that the audience muffled their laughter because it was so honest. If these people can't laugh at themselves then they're embarrassed by what they do not do, which is not ask biting questions out of fear of loss of access or being stabbed by a spear chunked from the media-hating nimrods of FreeRepublic. Colbert did a great job and the jokes didn't work because for once it really poked fun in a poignant way at the Administration's fumbles.

And without a video about looking for weapons of mass destruction that was produced in ovious poor taste.

by thomas on 05/01/06 03:12 PM

The best part is that Bush probably didn't understand Colbert's sarcasm

by ben Goodnight on 05/01/06 03:41 PM

that was blue oyster cult, right? "don't fear the spear chunkers"?

by papalovesmambo on 05/01/06 03:53 PM

it was pretty good. the pacing was terrible though. it looked like he had a bunch of jumbled flash cards and was sorting through them. the clearing brush, mccain stuff, and "don't report bad things" stuff was great. and it looked like bush was trying to push out a thick one, which is worth the price of admission by itself.

by konstantConsumer on 05/01/06 03:56 PM

Papalovesmambo, hell yes it is! You got that bootleg from Nova Scotia, too? Rocks!

by thomas on 05/01/06 04:33 PM

I think the reason why it bombed among attendees but was popular among the commenters here and on lefty blogs is because it's not an informed attack on Bush so much as an attack on the Bush that leftists imagine.

No one is laughing because the jokes aren't resonating. I mean, I can tell you that these jokes would be busting guts of the audience at the Colbert Report. But the audience of the Colbert Reporter isn't exactly that informed. Frequently it seems leftists are more angry than informed. I'm not a leftist, but I share a dislike of Bush. Still, I never recognize the Bush described by the Kossites.

by Cookie Blickensderfer on 05/01/06 05:00 PM

I agree with much of what Blickensderfer said. The jokes, while some were funny, were ill-timed, and somewhat poorly delivered.

And the idea that the Washington press is "afraid" of attacking the President is just about knee-slapingly hilarious. The real reason that the Press doesn't go around screaming that wiretapping is unprecedented, the economy is in a "slump," the war was based on lies, etc, is because the Press has the unfortunate disposition of knowing the facts.

The facts may not stop fanatics like the Daily Kos, Cindy Sheehan and MoveOn crowd, but fortunately the MSM isn't bat-shit crazy just yet.

* notes how astonishing it is that I just made a pro-MSM post

by Chris on 05/01/06 05:25 PM

Anyone who thinks his routine wasn't funny is a sad, sad bastard.

Uninformed? Um...maybe this slipped past you: 'Daily Show' viewers ace political quiz.

By far, the best part was the Scalia bit. Not only is he the funniest justice on the bench, he's obviously one of the few people in D.C. with a sense of humor.

by Jerry on 05/01/06 08:31 PM

Jerry: I agree on Scalia, and it was a funny bit.

I think you and Blickensderfer may be dealing with different levels or at least definitions of "informed" here. Sure, Colbert Report and Daily Show viewers are on average much better informed than most Americans. They can name their congressmen and the three branches of government. But I still wouldn't call most of them "informed" in any meaningful sense... they can site issues and controversies, but don't take the time to learn the substance of the issues or have any well-rounded understanding of their meaning. They can tell you that Bush "illegally" wiretapped Americans, but can't tell you what the program was, why it was illegal, and what the other side would argue. So maybe I have a bit of an elitist view of what it takes for one to actually be "informed," but I think the view is correct nontheless.

by Chris on 05/01/06 09:49 PM

Interesting piece. The timing was bad, but mostly because he was bombing when he should have been killing. What sounds like an uncomfortable pause should have been filled with laughter.

by Gunner on 05/02/06 09:27 AM

The biggest problem with Colbert's timing was that he performed this act at the White House Press Correspondants Dinner, an event where people from both the White House and Press would be present.

It was funny. It is actually even funnier because of the reaction of the humorless crowd and dingbat on the dais.

Chris, I look forward to your next chapter in "Who is allowed to speak intelligently" ... so celebrities, no matter their education and experience are out... and now it is the overwhelmingly liberal audience of the Daily Show... let me guess, Limbaugh listeners, they're A-Ok?

by Barnacle on 05/02/06 11:08 AM

Aside from the quality of the routine or the ability of Colbert's usual audience to cite issues, but not have knowledge about secret programs (?), the problem with these sorts of comedy bits is the audience and the tension between their feelings on Bush and their respect for the office. It's one thing to rip him on late-night cable; it's another to do it front of him. Though a stubborn fool, he is, after all. the President of the United States.

by (D-DC) on 05/02/06 11:25 AM

Uhm, no Barnacle. Per your usual schtick, you assume I hold the opinion of (or feel the need to defend) the idiots or bigots that reside in my party (as I hope you wouldn't defend the idiots or bigots in yours).

I really don't know where you got the impression that I wanted to issue a fatwa on "who could speak intelligently," etc. I was making a simple statement that your average viewer, including that of the Daily Show, isn't informed in any real sense. I was parsing the meaning of "informed," but that's another issue.

Simmer down, Barny.

by Chris on 05/02/06 04:47 PM

It's an implied fatwa, not an express one, based on your "all celebrities are not informed, even if they take the time to learn something in the same way that you and I would learn something -- by observing and experiencing it" comment from last week and your "Daily Show viewers might think they are more informed and test more informed, but I assure you they are not because I say so" comment, supra. I'm just dying to find out who is smart enough to offer an opinion, aside, of course, from we happy few commenters.

It's not that I think you feel the need to defend the Legion of Doom's lesser members (err, 60 million people more worried about boys kissing than their own boys being killed), it's more that you do, on a regular, not-so-fresh basis.

by Barnacle on 05/02/06 07:22 PM

I have to disagree with the honorable Wonketeers. Colbert was great. Yes, he did stand up to power by doing something the White House press corps won't do...talk about hard issues. Bush was forced to endure what I am sure constituted torture to him (but thanks to the torture memo won't qualify Colbert for extradition to the Hague (although I would keep an eye on him to make sure he's not sent to Gitmo. When the news corps won't stand up to Bush and call him out for his lies (the'write the novel' joke), the entertainment industry has fair license to ridicule him, especially in person. The news corps has become specialized in enternatiment and so now Colbert has come from entertainment (the Colbert Report is not news, per se) and entered into political news satire that matters (not that he hasn't already been there). Amen, Stephen.

by The Thieving Monkey on 05/03/06 02:56 AM

Your skilled use of parentheses and strange use of quotation marks belies your knowledge, Thieving Monkey.

Wait... no, your ill ability at grammar just makes you look like the sort of asshole who would use the sort of phrase "stand up to power." I hope your college's Social Studies Department is proud.

by Chris on 05/03/06 03:25 AM

Chris: You're a snob, brah.

Personally, I don't trust an Ivy League elitist like William Strunk to tell me how I should or should not compose text. All fact, no heart.

by Jerry on 05/03/06 10:41 AM

Chris, you apparently don't understand the West Coast's liberal attitude towards drunken blog-commenteerism. In fact, I think that just for this comment I need another PBR from the keg in my friekin' basement.

by The Thieving Monkey on 05/05/06 03:30 AM