Progressive Hackers!

I am shocked at MSM non coverage of this event. This was newsworthy regardless of how you look at it.

I hear racial and rape jokes are considered funny by some.

I don’t know who Special Ed is, but I followed the link to him or her. Check out the US and Mexican flag stunt for May 1 2006. Some one who puts that up is qualified to be a humor critic? Well, the link is above, you look, you decide.

horse penis jokes are funny? yeah right…

FITZ-like Action!

OT…

The “Gas Price Relief and Rebate Act” that would bribe
each of us with $100 (of our own tax money!)
to allow oil companies to drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
is being rushed to the Senate for a vote; maybe as soon as tomorrow, Tuesday.

Please call your Senators right now and tell them to vote NO on the Gas Price Relief and Rebate Act:

Toll-free Senate switchboard: (888) 355-3588 or (888) 818-6641
or, not toll-free Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Jane, outstanding! — the only ones who don’t like what colbert did are never going to desert bush anyway — bumiller will be with him till hell freezes over: by calling her a journalist, you honor her too, too much

Fitz!
and for LawDay:
Hammurabi!
Blackstone!
Moses!
Muhammad!
Marshall!
Napoleon!
Menes!
Confucius! (Kung Fu Tze!)
Solomon!
Lycurgus!
Draco!
Octavian and Justinian!
Charlemagne!
Grotius!
Kings John & Louis IX

I think back on how the right wing has expressed itself over the last 15 years. The message is all about outrage, finger pointing, blame, and indignation.

Even now, when they have control over everything, they STILL act like angry victims.

The Republican motto ought to be “How DARE you??”

Maybe not. I’ll let Colbert come up with something that is keen, sharp, accurate, and totally hilarious.

‘Hickory Dickory Dock, same old, tired Liberal schlock’

;>)

Bit o’this’n’that.
Even Lisa Murkowski gave thumbs down to the $100 throw-money-at-it bribe during her appearance on Face.

How nice that Rush [and if ever there were an appropriate first name for a hillbilly heroin junkie….] gets to spend Law Day copping a plea and explaining it to his goopers.

Wonder how many people who are protesting the flying of Mexican flags during immigration protests are flying their own stars-n-bars? What’s a hundred years + of anti-Americanism among goober friends….

And, what’s the deal with Bumiller still reporting on the White House? She should have been reassigned as soon as she decided to take the book deal writing Condi’s bio.

Ah, the conflicts, the hypocrisy…smells like…. the freshly “annointed” pastures up here in the north country.

The whole thing about Colbert and “the room” is that Colbert was using “the room” as his props in his act. (Either that, or — like Helen Thomas — they were his willing assistants.)

He wasn’t playing TO “the room”, if by “room” you mean the Bush lackeys physically sitting in front of him. He was playing OFF the room, going into the gig knowing full well that the vast majority of them would not like what he had to say — and their stony silence was exactly what he was counting on to please his REAL audience: You, me and everyone we know (or are forwarding the video links to).

As Dover pointed out, these are the people Colbert was speaking to.

Try making Coulter laugh without the use of racial slurs.

John Casper – from last post. IIRC Bill Kristol was on Colbert Report a few days before the press dinner. At the end he reminded Colbert that he had helped him land the hosting gig. Of course I could be wrong…….

spot on. i was thinking about this earlier. who could the right send forth as their own colbert? hitch? buckley? rush?

they got nothing…

Laughter is to the soul as lightening and thunder is to nature. Profound and terrifing on the horizen but bringing the purifing rain making us feel secure in our shelters. Comedians are sacred “holy persons” “heyokas” in the Lakota tradition.

The beauty of Colbert’s delivery was the utterly pompous puffy hostility of the crowd facing him. The pearl clutching butt clenching expressions of the audience was the perfect foil for Colbert’s wit.

I was surprised to see and hear no mention of colbert’s perfect performance on a few news channels this AM. Also no mention of it on many “news” sites. But, there was plenty of coverage of the bush impersonator.

here are some jokes they probably thought were pretty funny:
-”This is an impressive crowd – the haves and the have-mores.”
-”Some people call you the elites; I call you my base.”
-there was also one about not finding WMDs but it escapes me at the moment.

Jane -

The perfect picture for this thread!
I watched Colbert live and he didn’t look uncomfortable, especially compared to the Bush/Cheney cultists in the room.

I much preferred the painful squirming in the audience this year over the smug indifferent chortles heard when Bush ran his “Where are the WMDs?” video 2 years ago!

The tight-*ss Bush sycophants should be thankful Lenny Bruce wasn’t there to suggest they get a hot-lead enema (Francis Gary Powers)!

and can we knock down the spin that bush was funny?

Deborah #5
Thank you for the heads up on this one.
They really want to rush to drill in the ANWR ASAP Don’t they.
Forget the $100.00 that is window dressing for what the Repubs really want as we all know.
I hope Frist has to eat his shorts on this one.
Hopefully the Democrats will have the guts to call this for what it is… Prostitution.

“I don’t know what it is about the right that they completely lack any ability to appreciate humor, but they sure as shit can’t write it either”

Spend a jolly hour loitering at RedState or some similar site. They say the exact same thing about liberals. And they spend a lot of time congratulating each other and themselves for keepin’ it real and having a lighthearted attitude in contrast with those Lefties who are all sturm und drang and crabbiness.

I suppose one could argue that they are wrong and that, in some luminous region beyond the Cave, rightie humor is inferior to leftie humor. But you’ll need something more than simple assertion (no matter how assertive) to convince me.

Don’t get me wrong – I think Wolcott is hilarious and check his site way more often than is justified by his typical posting rate. But I just don’t buy this notion that Lefties are funnier than Righties.

peckniffery? omg, Jane, that is priceless! I have a feeling it is one of those words which will fly at warp speed through the internets!

In my fast-becoming-perpetual role of devil’s advocate, I have to disagree about them not being funny. Ever. If you added the word “intentionally” I’d have to fold, but I still think Bush’s “India and Pakistan are two different countries” said slowly and with hand gestures — was PDF! And I think of Condi’s “but would you have wanted a cup of coffee when Sadaam was in control of Iraq” with every 5th or 6th cup I drink.

Byron York, author of this piece on “ain’t torture grand” http://www.thehill.com/york/063004.aspx apparently becoming a twitchy, quivery mass of concern on Sunday morning c-span (I wish I could have seen it) with concern over the abuses suffered by Scooter (who he apparently carefully referred to as Lewis, bc nicknames are so mean) and Karl (who he carefully referred to as Carl, so as not to confuse the audience with references to Marx) at the hands of relentless prosecutor who beat them about the head, neck and shoulders with multipage pleadings.

It’s more a kick my iron knee than a tickle my fancy kind of funny, but I think we have to be fair and say they do elicit a laugh now and again.

Stephen Colbert is our man in Tienamen Square standing in front of those tanks!

Someone online recently posed the question, Where is the Chinese man who stood in front of that line of People’s Army tanks in Tienamen Square? – implying that we need him here in the USA now!

Well, look no further than Stephen Colbert. His act of courage at the White House Correspondents’ dinner was exactly that.

good article on Slate Magazine: The Roots of MayDay http://www.slate.com/id/2140846/fr/rss/

*ilson46201 says:
May 1st, 2006 at 1:11 pm

Please add Sir Edward Coke to your list in post 7:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Coke

Bravo! Bravo! All hail Stephen Colbert!

I can’t wait for TDS and Colbert Report. Regardless of how the msm have treated his brilliant performance, after tonite the whole world will know about it.

Alden:

Find me three genuinely funny righties that could compete with TBogg, The Poor Man, or James Wolcott. (And I’m even confining myself to Left Blogistan.)

I rest my case.

And Ann Coulter’s jokes about offing everyone she disagrees with are funny?

it’s merely a continuation of the reverse psychological warfare MO.

remember, in an up is down world, when they start bleating about how unfunny colbert was, its likely a good indication they’re quaking in their trousers bc they realize he nailed it (in more ways than one) to the massive delight of millions.

“All they are capable of is wavering between ham-fisted brutality and self-righteous pecksniffery.”

Talk about great writing, that’s it!

And Phoenix Woman at #11 has it exactly right about Colbert. He was “working the room” allright, but with the brilliance of using the room against itself while picking out the few among them (including the inimitable Helen Thomas)worth celebrating.

Bush was not funny because he was following orders. Listen to his voice; it is flat.

It was a real-life version of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” staged smack dab in the middle of the royal court.

Having a sense of humor requires being able to laugh at yourself. The neocons and their various associates on the right take themselves very seriously. They may even enjoy feeling miserable – they certainly seem to think it’s their whole job in life to make the rest of us feel that way!

I cribbed my list of lawgivers from the walls of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. Sir Edward Coke sure sounds worthy of chiseling into that marble too!

Alden 22 — you come up with piece of humor from the right that is actually funny and then we may have something to talk about.

Yes, I know they think they’re a laugh ride. Just because they say they are doesn’t make it so.

OK, I’ll bite. I think P.J. O’rourke is pretty funny, though not sure he qualifies as a wingnut. He is a professed conservative.

As to Colbert, I’m glad they were uncomfortable, its a sign that some might still have a conscience.

Mary 24 — I absolutely stand corrected. The word “intentionally” most certainly belongs in there.

I can’t do that, Phoenix Woman, because I don’t find righties funny. Righties don’t find lefties funny, Lefties don’t find righties funny. Righties do find righties funny, Lefties do find lefties funny.

I think this says a lot more about the nature of humor than the nature of Lefties and Righties.

The only lack of symmetry is the relation of the humorist to power. Humor is intrinsically subversive and so it goes against its own grain when its used to heap scorn on the weak. I think you could make an interesting argument for the superiority of Leftie humor on that basis but that’s not the argument that was made in the original post.

“The beauty of Colbert’s delivery was the utterly pompous puffy hostility of the crowd facing him. The pearl clutching butt clenching expressions of the audience was the perfect foil for Colbert’s wit.” Amen, Carolyn.

What a bunch of pompous, overdressed, sour-faced people there were in that crowd. I loved it when C-span cut to them! They were completely blindsided by Colbert. I guess some people can’t take a joke.

It’s a self-perpetuating cycle. Colbert makes a joke out of people too self-important to get the joke who harumph that the joke wasn’t funny because they are too self-important to get the joke.

The Neocons pride themselves in their ignorance of history. Historically Colbert’s role was that of the court jester, who keeps the king from egotistical excesses. The jester has special dispensation to mock because of the role he fills in keeping he king human by holding up a mirror to the king. Being ignorant of history, the Neocons miss the opportunity to laugh at themselves in the mirror and thus become more human.

The exception that proves the rule is Justice Scalia, who whatever else you may say about him had the sense, and maybe even the grace, to be able to laugh at himself reflected in Colbert’s mirror.

The Neocons look into the mirror held up by Colbert and say “That’s ugly and it’s not funny.” And to the extent that he mirrors them, they are correct.

Alden 40 — The only lack of symmetry is the relation of the humorist to power. Humor is intrinsically subversive and so it goes against its own grain when its used to heap scorn on the weak. I think you could make an interesting argument for the superiority of Leftie humor on that basis but that’s not the argument that was made in the original post.

I get it. So this makes righties funny.

I’m in stitches right now just thinking about it. You’ve totally won me over.

Yeah, that Stephen Colbert paid the price alright! He got his own segment on Sunday’s 60 Minutes for a brilliant interview. I know he’s SUFFERING. Poor guy.

Michael Scherer at Slate delivers his kudos to Colbert http://www.salon.com/opinion/f…..=salon.rss

The funny thing is that Colbert let ‘em off easy.

Pecksniffery? I love it.

Colbert is courageous. There’s going to be more courage coming from the left. There certainly isn’t any coming from the Democratic Party.

alden, you might be a redneck…

Long time lurker, first time poster.

Great post Jane, and great job. I love FDL, it’s on my must read list.

As I read the Bumiller’s article on the subway, I thought that the Bush impersonater was the only act – forgot all about Colbert even though he had mentioned it on his show. After some reading of the blogs, I had to write a letter to editor. It’s be nice to be able to rely on my paper of record, but once more that ain’t the case. Doubt the letter will get any ink.

It’s amazing to see the right wing whining about how Colbert wasn’t funny because the crowd was silent, and the crowd was silent because he was attacking the dear leader. No, the crowd was silent because he was attacking them, this pathetic excuse for a press corp. And that’s exactly why they ignored Colbert and played up the chimp twins.

I hope that the play this is getting in FDL, Atrios, Froomkin, Billmon, et al gets through. Like my sighting of an ITMFA hat on the B68 bus Saturday, things do filter out into the crowd.

This was my favorite bit on the collection of blog quotes linked from the Froomkin post, from Respublica:

I disagree because the Colbert personna on Comedy Central affects an almost politically androgynous manner. Republicans like him because although he is being satirical, the satire leaves room for viewers who support President Bush to find something to like. That was lost last night.

We will probably continue to watch the Colbert Report, but not quite as often and not with the same affection for the man.

I find it hilarious that there are (or were) Republicans who liked Colbert’s show because, fundamentally, they don’t get it, and furthermore they don’t get that they don’t get it.

I wonder how many of the Republicans and their fellow travelers out there who are dissing Stephen Colbert for being mean and unpatriotic and so forth were as quick to condemn Don Imus when he ripped into Clinton during a White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner a few years ago?

I didn’t laugh once during Bush’s “Doppelganger moment”, and my 15-year old son and I were laughing out loud as Colbert stuck in and twisted the knife repeatedly.

I hope the cocktail weenies were delicious, because those Beltway Blowhards sure got bitch-slapped by Colbert.

if it wasn’t funny, it’s because of the reality of this administration’s actions. they have almost made parody obsolete.

The right is never funny because they are highly cynical (in the true sense of that word) and take nothing — nothing — seriously.

Larry #25

“Stephen Colbert is our man in Tienamen Square standing in front of those tanks!“

http://www.wolfblog.net/images/TSquare.jpg

Joke:
How many wingnuts does it take to bankrupt the worlds richest economy, destroy 200 years of democracy, and make the worlds most powerful nation into a detested and impotent laughingstock ?

A: That’s not funny.

“The Correspondents Dinner prides itself on making the evening a safe venue for all, and the humor is supposed to stay self-deprecating. Attacking one’s opponents in this forum is considered bad manners.”

Unless the President is Bill Clinton, and the “humorist” is Don Imus, and the “humor” isn’t particularly humorous or accurate.

“it didn’t keep with the spirit of the evening. The Correspondents Dinner prides itself on making the evening a safe venue for all, and the humor is supposed to stay self-deprecating. Attacking one’s opponents in this forum is considered bad manners.”

And National press it is also considered “BAD MANNERS” to abdicated your responsibility to the citizen’s of this nation by never asking thses dopes any questions, never following up on your ridiculous collegues questions, and being basically complict in a war that will ultimately rob all of our nations soul (not to mention money)

Jane – I just gotta say, you craft such very good prose day in and day out – wow!

just back from the big Chicago march – had to come to the office to get my laptop fixed and do some Ykos stuff so I couldn’t do the full day – and it was amazing … wonderful energy, happy people, proud people, even the cops were in good spirits – huge crowd and a great sense that people marching together for justice can win! I particularly loved seeing a very old gentleman, proudly mexican, chanting boldly while wearing a hands off iran button … el pueblo unido…!

A puzzling response, Jane.

I never suggested that righties were funny or funnier. Your sarcasm is misplaced. And if its not sarcasm, then I’m totally baffled. heh.

Well, anyhow, carry on.

hah! I knew we cound find some way to blame it on France (salon.com re Colbert – “The Truthiness Hurts”):

…In the late 1960s, the Situationists in France called such ironic mockery “détournement,” a word that roughly translates to “abduction” or “embezzlement.” It was considered a revolutionary act, helping to channel the frustration of the Paris student riots of 1968. They co-opted and altered famous paintings, newspapers, books and documentary films, seeking subversive ideas in the found objects of popular culture. “Plagiarism is necessary,” wrote Guy Debord, the famed Situationist, referring to his strategy of mockery and semiotic inversion. “Progress demands it. Staying close to an author’s phrasing, plagiarism exploits his expressions, erases false ideas, replaces them with correct ideas.”

But nearly half a century later, the ideas of the French, as evidenced by our “Freedom fries,” have not found a welcome reception in Washington. The city is still not ready for Colbert….

“…pecksniffery…”

This is why I come here (mostly lurking) everyday. It’s words like these, other snarks, and ‘wish-I’d-said-thats’ that keeps me coming back for more.

Terrific jab at the baffoons Jane.

siun: glad to see you made it to the Marcha! ‘cbl’ from here was going too. Indianapolis is quiet today – no ‘boicot’ organzing or marching here. is Pachacutec taking a day off from blogging to protest?
Of course you know that MayDay as International Labor Day started in Chicago…

Jane,
Billmon has a post about “The Joker in the Pack” with a hilarious mock-up of Frist as the Joker. It’s bound to prove a classic. You might want to save it for use as a header sometime.

punaise: I bet the French don’t have a word for chauvinism either!

Jane sez:

“I fear no one on the right. Ever. All they are capable of is…”

Funny thing about that. Pundits and bloggers may be harmless, but you always must keep this in perspective.

If this administration ever finds itself with its back against the wall… support down to sub-Nixon levels, a goner of an election, a Democratic Congress and indictments on the march… do you really think these people are just going to jump over the net and say, “Oh well, good game, old sport!”?

They’re not into losing, they do not intend to lose, they do not intend to give it all up, they do not intend to go to jail. If it meant martial law and the deaths of multitudes of Ameican citizens, would they destroy even the pretense of a free nation and kill their own people?

I’m not afraid to go on record to say you betcha, they’d do it in a heartbeat.

As for the “humor” of right vs. Left, of course the right isn’t funny. They’re as “funny” as the Nazis could have been… the Nazis being the wacky folks who brought you concentration camps. I might find it hard to schmooze at a national dinner with the people who turned my friends into soap. But that’s just me.

(And if you still think it’s possible for the right to grok wit: “Mallard Fillmore”. Thank you.)

But Jane, with regard to being “afraid of the right”, please be warned: it’s a whole new ballgame when you mock the evil king.

I can’t get the movie “V For Vendetta” out of my head, in which an immensely popular TV host takes the unheard-of step of performing a satirical skit on his program about the dictator. In “Benny Hill” fashion, he ridicules the tyrant and makes light of the oppression that’s weighing like a molasses cloud over the country. People first gasp at the danger; then they laugh and exhale, and we’re all human again, for a moment.

Then, the government’s goons break into the TV star’s home and beat him to death (while making comments along the lines of, “Laughing NOW, Funny Boy?”).

Oh give me a break, stupid W gets his ass handed to him. We’ve all been listening to his idiotic lunacy for 5 years. SC was simply the character he on the SC Report. Its like when John Stewart went on Crossfire, they were so surprised to hear somebody call them out on their hopelessly poor job. Telling the truth is exactly what comics do!

What did the fools in DC think SC would do, SC just told them what 1/2 the country thinks about this president and his pandering enablers. Bush got up there last year and made jokes about the failure to find WMDs in Iraq – a search operation that cost the lives of American soilders.

CNN is hyping an upcoming story on “The Situation Room” about how funny the Preznit was at the Dinner with his double! HA HA HA

Ted Turner weeps…

My gut feeling (note: I have no rational proof as I haven’t thought about it all that much) is that Someone knew exactly what s/he was doing when they booked Colbert for this shindig.

And I did notice that there was an awful lot of silent tittering going on in the audience behind dinner napkins and hands.

*ilson:

I’ve been mostly out of blogging today but doing other business, including my own, er, job.

Doing a lot of juggling these days!

Jane

self righteous pecksniffery

That phrase deserves a paypal donation.

beautiful writing, Jane. Hey Howie are you paying attention?

From think progress, here’s what the morning dodobirds on faux had to say:
>>>>>>

BRIAN KILMEADE: We’re also going to talk about what happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The inside story about the Steven Colbert speech: was it really over the line or is that just typical when the President goes to these Washington correspondents dinners?

STEVE DOOCY: [Referring to on-screen image] There you’ve got the dueling Dubyas. Stephen Colbert — I have been to twenty of them and he was over the line.

[snip]

KIRAN CHETRY: What I was wondering though, because we did show some clips and at times it looked like the President was not laughing. Do you think he was annoyed by that or he thought it was not funny?

DOOCY: He was playing a good sport as his body double was there. But shortly after that, the paid performer, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report, took the stage and did about 15 minutes and it was very uncomfortable. Personally I felt like he went over the line. Today in Lloyd Grove’s column, he says that Colbert “bombed badly.†It was not very funny.

>>>>>

there it is– officially pronounced not funny to the remaining 32% of backwash.

Great writing Jane, as always.

The right always tries to dismiss the left by saying no one is listening or no one cares. I think an interesting case in point is what happened to The Dixie Chicks after the famous announcement about Bush.

The right tried to shut them down and drive them out of the bidness. The fact that they didn’t (and from what I’ve read elsewhere, not even at the time, outside of certain smallish markets) really says something about the true appeal of the right.

Shorter version: More people lean left than right.

*********

Don’t want you to think me a dweeb*, but for those who want to know:

Main Entry: Pecksniff
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: an extreme hypocrite
Etymology: a character in Charles Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit

*dweeb ( P ) Pronunciation Key (dwb)
n. Slang
A person regarded as socially inept or foolish, often on account of being overly studious.

This is the part I don’t understand: Colbert was playing the character he is most famous for. What else did they expect? Who invites Steven Colbert to be the guest comedian at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and is then surprised when he makes the same kind of jokes he makes on his show 4 days a week?

I think anyone and anything that makes me laugh and the right squirm is pretty damn terrific. The hypocrisy of their complaining about Colbert’s riff, after having declared Bush’s “Where are the WMDs” schtick as funny is just astounding (oh,my, going to war on a false premise is just soooooo funny I can barely catch my breath. That Beavis-boy Bush – he’s just a funny, funny guy!).

We all know what the real problem is: the truth hurts.

Goopers didn’t think that Colbert was funny. They don’t think that today’s protests are funny either. Odd. They have no senses of the bizarre.

Illegal immigrants protesting for immigration “rights” is funny. Don’t know what’s wrong with goopers. I’ve been laughing my ass off about it all day!

Right on, Jane.

I have heard it said, and not inaccurately I might add, that to invote the wrath of James Wolcott in particular is to invite the death of a thousand cuts.

I will agree with the statement upthread, however, about how the right can be funny on occasion, but only when they themselves are the joke.

Ay the play’s the thing…and fellow of infinite jest Colbert remind’s me of the late great Clarence Darrow who lost his immediate audience at the Scopes Chimp…monkee trial but through the magic of radio won the national audience over to evolution. ( Well half the national audience )

Hearty cong-rats to the interzone’s very own Colbert – funny guy’s beat phoney guy’s everytime.

BTW, great and, as per usual, inpired choice of the Lenny Bruce pic for this post.

CNN had screenshots of mydd, Durang @ huffpo and the thank you SC site…remarks by the internet reporter that the site is new and has gone from 500 to over 11,000 entries today…

Great post. Humor can absolutely be used as a weapon.It breaks down defenses so as to get at the truth, and our side has it. I was overjoyed when Al Franken came out with his Air America show named “The O’Franken Factor” after Bill O’Reilly’s O’Reilly Factor.
To me it just let all the air out of the self-righteous puffery of Wing Pundits.
Colbert with Kristol? Perfect example.
“All in the Family” comes to mind as well- a show produced by a liberal- that was not only uproariously funny but revealed the humanity on BOTH SIDES of contentious issues of the day, and if ANY humanity can be exposed it is a force multiplier for our side because that brings people together. The right’s one-trick-pony is to push people apart.They do not and can not, as Al F. says: “bring the funny”.

Does anyone have a link to Bumiller saying “it was just too scary” to ask the administration tough questions before the war?

Blizted Wolf just reported the Bush “twin” bit was terrific – no mention of Corbert of course. Could someone explain to me why little man Blitzer & his Situation Room is still on the air?

amusingly, Ted Kennedy pointedly refused to actually come out and endorse Lieberman despite repeated efforts by Tweety… what a skillful politician!

Chisholm # 82
>>>>
BUMILLER: I think we were very deferential because…it’s live, it’s very intense, it’s frightening to stand up there. Think about it, you’re standing up on prime-time live TV asking the president of the United States a question when the country’s about to go to war. There was a very serious, somber tone that evening, and no one wanted to get into an argument with the president at this very serious time.
http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh032504.shtml

Anne–Wolfie and Senior political reporter Candy Crowley are on the air cause they once witnessed sr. Mgmt. Fuckin goats.

Shorter Alden: To be funny, you have to kick up, not down. And that’s pretty much true.

Moreover, at least since “King Lear,” the role of the court jester (the “Fool” in that particular example) has been to tell the King the truth. The catch: Anyone else who tried to do it ended up in a world of hurt.

Jane you hit the nail on the head when you said that humor is based on the truth and that’s why the right is not funny. If you don’t realize the truth as it is, then nothing will appear funny.

Goopers can be funny I suppose- but not while in the act of performing wingnuttery- wingnuttery requires a certain facial expression- similar to one straining at a bowel movement- ever try to laugh while takin a dump?

Great post, Jane.

For those who don’t get the “pecksniffery” reference, I offer: http://search.sympatico.msn.ca…..cksniffery

There’s a post from FDL on that page as well.

*ilson46201 65
I bet the French don’t have a word for chauvinism either!

true story: W once derided the French economic system because, heck, they don’t even have a word for entrepreneur

“The Rehabilitation of the Cold-War Liberal”
From yesterday’s New York Times: “Peter Beinart is editor at large of The New Republic. This essay is adapted from “The Good Fight: Why Liberals — and Only Liberals — Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again,” which will be published in late May by HarperCollins”
“…..The liberal story also finds its roots in the early cold war. If cold-war conservatism began with the founding of National Review, cold-war liberalism emerged slightly earlier, in 1947, when Niebuhr, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, Hubert Humphrey and the United Auto Workers’ chief Walter Reuther, established Americans for Democratic Action. The A.D.A. was born amid a civil war on the American left, which pitted anti-Communists like Humphrey against Henry Wallace and those liberals who saw communism less as an enemy than as an ally. But by 1949, Wallace was vanquished, and the A.D.A. increasingly defined itself against the right.
The liberal story began with a different fear about America. If cold-war conservatives worried that Americans no longer saw their own virtue, cold-war liberals worried that Americans saw only their virtue. The A.D.A.’s most important intellectual — its equivalent of James Burnham — was the tall, German-American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. Niebuhr was a dedicated opponent of communism, but he was concerned that in pursuing a just cause, Americans would lose sight of their own capacity for injustice. “We must take, and must continue to take, morally hazardous actions to preserve our civilization,” he wrote. “We must exercise our power. But we ought neither to believe that a nation is capable of perfect disinterestedness in its exercise nor become complacent about particular degrees of interest and passion which corrupt the justice by which the exercise of power is legitimized.” Americans, Niebuhr argued, should not emulate the absolute self-confidence of their enemies. They should not pretend that a country that countenanced McCarthyism and segregation was morally pure. Rather, they should cultivate enough self-doubt to ensure that unlike the Communists’, their idealism never degenerated into fanaticism. Open-mindedness, he argued, is not “a virtue of people who don’t believe anything. It is a virtue of people who know. . .that their beliefs are not absolutely true….”

Thanks rwcole – certainy explains everything!

The press thought that Colbert was shooting the messenger. He wasn’t. He was shooting the sidekick.

I think it emboldens the entire left side of the blogosphere, knowing that those on the right are completely incapable of coming back at them with anything other than unimpressive, humorless thuggery.

Damned skippy. I’m so emboldened I named my blog Emboldened (Don’t let the URL fool you, I’m telling the truth. With impunity.)

I won’t have time to read all the comments in this thread until later, but I just wanted to toss in this:

A lot of my work in grad school was focused on the total inability of any totalitarian regime (in the case of my work: the fascist flavor) to inspire anything to which the label of “art” could be affixed.

The justifications for thuggery never provide anything in the way of grist for the artist’s mill (whether painting, architecture, literature, theater, sculpture, etc. — or comedy) other than the full palette of deception and superficiality.

One of the main bits of research I did was the study of how the Nazis hijacked “biblical” and other “religious” themes and motifs for their “poets” to use — but these themes/motifs could only be put into place by totally upending their original (and traditional) meanings through the use of sneaky, sleight-of-hand rhetorical tricks.

The research I did back when on the culture of the Weimar Republic prepared me to react in horror to what I saw unfolding from the Bush camp in the year 2000 already.

That fascists have (and CAN have) no real sense of humor is thus not surprising. They only have the “humor” of jack-booted brownshirts kicking their victims when they’re already down.

Thanks to Jane for pointing out this essential insight. In our chaotic infotainment landscape, it’s a basic truth which is easy to miss for those suffering from aggravated attention deficit disorder.

[And as an aside, my favorite online analyst for the “culture” of neofascism is of course Neiwert. No one dissects this diseased part of the body politic in great detail like he can.)

Jane, did you really write that Stephen Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ dinner constituted a “historic moment?” Compared to what? The first shot at Fort Sumter? The appearance of the first Japanese plane over Pearl Harbor? The signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo? It was a dinner with some jokes amongst insiders… in short, no big deal.

Expressing something humorously doesn’t really mean much beyond the fact that someone chuckles for a moment. If it meant more than that, Johnny Carson would have been made emperor by general acclimation in 1967, the Algonquin Round Table would have been given the power of Constitutional review, and Soupy Sales would be Secretary of Labor.

When “the wits of the liberal blogosphere sit down behind their keyboards and start tapping out daggers, slicing up the right with eviscerating humor that cuts to the bone, they know full well they are going into battle with unarmed opponents,” all they’re doing is playing to the true believers and scoring a few yucks. They’re not in battle with unarmed opponents, they’re taking swings at windmills and congratulating themselves for their bravery.

Confronting power is all fine and dandy — and far more entertaining when done with wit and style. But that’s the easy part of democracy, not the brave part. The hard part is coming up with alternative agendas that attract voters and then going through the long, hard slog of enacting them in the compromised world of politics. All the Colberts, Wolcotts, TBoggs and Generals out there have nothing to do with that.

Since good humor is based on the truth, all the right has left to laugh at is slipping on banana peels and people getting hurt.

I just sent an email to CNN asking them why they haven’t mentioned Colbert’s performance. I doubt I will get a reply, I have never got a reply from CNN about anything.
http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form1.html?39

WILSON coming up on tweety!!! will he mention COLERT???

Stewart/Colbert 2008!!

*ilson – waving! as the proud daughter of a proud union carpenter who taught me that Norman Thomas and the wobblies were the true heros of american history … you bet!

And today’s Chicago march started in Union Park and went past Haymarket Square before heading through the Loop to the park. I joined up in the Loop and had a glorious time … had to pop back here for a bit to pick up the infamous laptop and now I’m off to the Darfur rally at Fed Plaza which will be a very different tone.

There’s something about gazillions of folks, dancing in the streets for justice AHORA! that does the heart good …

John Pearley Huffman:

re: bravery

You are, I assume, writing from somewhere outside the Green Zone in Iraq?

JPH –

All the Colberts, Wolcotts, TBoggs and Generals out there have nothing to do with that.

That’s funny. I seem to remember hearing from numerous sources how absolutely essential subversive humor was to keeping up the morale of the public under the various totalitarian Soviet regimes.

OT – found this via ThinkProgress.com.

“The Secret Service has agreed to turn over White House visitor logs that will show how often convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff met with Bush administration officials — and with whom he met“

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/200…..h_abramoff

OfT:Feingold heartens activists in Iowa with tough-talking attacks

Brad 74: Here’s what my older son (24 almost) said when I told him about Colbert’s rout: “You’re telling me they hired Steven Colbert…and didn’t KNOW that’s what he’d do?!”

John Pearley Huffman @ #97 quasi-poo-poos Colbert. There’s a grain of truth there in that Colbert et al in-and-of-itself will not effect change but he is indeed an ancillary in the broad general battle against tyranny. Culture is always helpful in the political struggle and must be cultivated!

flash! On Hardball, Schuster just said Valery Plame was part of a group investigating nuclear weapons in iran and that the revelation of her identity blew that operation……

#40, this is a valid point: Humor is intrinsically subversive and so it goes against its own grain when its used to heap scorn on the weak.

But the comment immediately brought this to mind: “And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this–this [she chuckles slightly] is working very well for them.”

After all, if she weren’t heaping scorn on the weak she would have guffawed rather than merely chuckled slightly.

David Shuster is a very fine reporter, imho.

Who paid for W’s double??? We, the people?

#98 Ouch

http://tinyurl.com/a6erq

Do help pass the link around… Get a letter to the press out, and let’s help bury this criminal regime.

My ‘Dear Elisabeth Bumiller’ (WaPo) email -
_____

So, if a Steven Colbert “falls flat†in a forest of tux’d & gowned mainstream media suckups and no one subsequently hears about it, did it really happen?

I guess people like you gotta assiduously safeguard your precious DC dinner party “access,†‘eh?

Cheers -

BobbyG

David Shuster has breaking news on what Valerie Plame was doing when she got outed. He’s been able to confirm that she was busy trying to track down leads on Iran’s weappons program!

And to think this same gang of desperados are now busy playing wag-the-dog with a supposed Iran threat. Such irony!

> flash! On Hardball, Schuster just said Valery Plame was part of a group investigating nuclear weapons in iran and that the revelation of her identity blew that operation

Thank goodness this angle of the Plame story is finnaly getting some attention.

tweety announced that JOE WILSON was gonna be on HB after schusters(SP) report then . . . what the fuck . . . now they have the GOP blondie??

tweety whimps out. wilson buggers off. i am high?

did anyone else see that???

Aside from humor, it was foolish to invite Colbert and not expect his full bore meta-meta-irony act, which he would carry through no matter how low the comfort level goes. Look at some of his spoof interviews. Both Colbert and Ed Helms have had their marks, including Congressmen and Senators bail out, blow them off, or get disgusted part way through, walk off, refuse to play along anymore. SC and EH don’t seem to give a rat’s ass. They complete their mission no matter what. So, someone expected a comfort level from a Daily Show correspondent, ex or otherwise? No way.

I wish all the news reporters would just read the left-wing blogs. The’d get their information so much sooner.

Jane, way to dig back into the Land of Dickens and resurrect the perfect word at the perfect moment. Thank you!

“And so it was that on the first of May, back in aught-six, the word “pecksniffery” was reborn. It immediately spread its blue-veined wings and took flight, ultimately making a beeline for Bill O’Reilly’s crotch, right in the middle of another one of his “War On Christianity” rants. And so began a reign of truthiness that sent the citizens of Outer Dumbfuckistan reeling, attempting gamely to deflect the oh-so-dangerous word with shouts of “Not Funny!!!” but ultimately forced to watch their favorite right wing culture-warriors standing there on television, ears smoking, trousers down and cover blown. And God snickered.”

I’ve always thought there was more than one reason for outing Valerie.

If her people were uncovering the truth and maybe even helping to feed nuclear misinfo/disinfo to Iran to slow them down considerably, she and her contacts represented a threat to the future of the PNAC agenda.

It was always supposed to be: first Iraq, then Iran, then Syria, and…I forget which came next in their sick ideological manifesto…was it Libya or Lebanon?

wesgpc -

Yep. Recall the sometimes icy “discomfort” Jon Stewart got skewering the Oscar night crowd?

MAJOR PROPS to Colbert for doing the right thing.

ppirt (116)
well, he did have a video cut from the dinner during schuster’s segment. maybe he will be on later in the program.

1,039 DAYS AND THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON…

John Pearley Huffman,

There is a one word description of yer post in response to Jane’s description of Colbert’s performance: BULLSHIT!

In fact, there have been plenty of “alternative agendas” which have attracted voters in the last 6 years and actually won electoral majorities…the only way the illegitimate fascist leadership will be beaten is by public humiliation and exposure. Both the ruling party and the corporate media that props them up must be eviscerated by humor, satire and truth. Colbert’s excerise of his talent to strip away any semblance of legitimacy and reach thru the smoke and mirrors in the banquet room to the greater audience that votes is indeed an “historic moment”. Colbert legitimized the experience and politics of a majority of Americans on Saturday Night and it was indeed “historic” in this first decade of unelected, authoritarian rule.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, WE’RE WAY PAST AGENDAS!!!

fahrender, green lantern, and aReader -

Is this the first time this news about Valerie Plame, which has been mentioned on FDL for several weeks, has been mentioned on television?

if Schuster is indeed coming out openly and connecting Mrs. Wilson to spying on Iran – and her outing blew major spy stuff about atom bombs by Persians — the White House is indeed in deep deep political shit

BobbyG –

bumiller is at the nyt.

JPH, after reading your post, I was embarrassed for you. “All the Colberts, Wolcotts, TBoggs and Generals out there have nothing to do with that.”
Sure they do, JPH, check out Bush’s slide south in the polls.
What was “historic” about Colbert was that he took on BOTH Bush and the Press. Please, JPH, if you know of someone else at the WH Correspondent’s Dinner, who has done THAT, please by all means, link to it.
JPH, if you want “alternative agendas,” just read the posts here at FDL. “Obey the law,” is a big one and there are several posts about it just today.

Hi Mrs. K8,
I remember the “Evil Empire” as being Iran, Syria and North Korea.

fahrender says: (122)

thanks comrade . . . you are right. tweety was referring to that little video comment from WILSON. i ‘misunderestimated’ tweety again!

OT: nicloe wallace needs me! i could love the gop out of her!!!

Horatian satire was chummy, insider satire. Then Juvenal came along and said ‘look at this bunch of fuckers’. “Difficile est saturam non scribere.”

bkny -

Yeah. My Bad. I just clinked a link off of Froomkin’s piece and filled in my rant in her email form. Never paid any attention.

Duh.

this Schuster story is the very first time the Iran/Valerie connection has been made on Traditional Media.

*ilson46201 says:

May 1st, 2006 at 2:36 pm

Did David Schuster mention anything about his sources? Will this story be on Countdown?

Also, give Shuster his Peabody already. Yes, his reports for Hardball and Countdown do sometimes come across as ‘Give me the damn Peabody’ journalism, but he deserves it.

what plame was actually working on has always been at the heart of this case and has been a secret all along. one would think the judges who have presided on this and have ruled that in fact a crime was committed when her cover was blown have seen the unredacted truth. maybe there was a far bigger and more obvious crime committed than we ever imagined?

Froomkin quotes Billmon. That. Is. All.

#123

Amen, dear Norske, amen!

I love your fire and passion — it never fails to lift morale.

*ilson-
Don’t get your hopes up. That would mean that MSM actually stands up to the decider and reports something unfavorable. I mean, really!

No better validation of Colbert’s slamming of the suck-ups in the Washington media than to watch Tweety’s interview of the White House flack now showing.

What the hell are you gys talking about. The righties have a group of jokes that are all their own. Race jokes. Dur!

Boy, making fun of the president while we’re at war is fun, huh? Gee, there’s no way this could make us look weak to the insurgents. No, nothing makes us look united like a third-rate “comedic” hack taking pot shots at the Commander-in-Chief.

#97- interesting that your examples of “historical” are limited to events pertaining to acts of war; speech can be “historical” as well, can’t it? You also dismiss the importance of the occasion as no big deal because it was amongst insiders; How do you figure? I saw it on Cspan and I know MSNBC carried it too…Everyone does have a part to play and Colbert played his part heroically.

The only thing that could brighten my week more than Colbert brightened my Sunday, would be for Karl Rove to get his chance to do the perp walk. And I think that’s coming.

I love how the MSM were so completely tormented by Colbert’s performance.

I guess the truth really does hurt!

Margot –

I’m talking about PNAC’s evil manifesto (posted already in 1997, IIRC) on the website newamericancentury.org.

Sorry I won’t go back to get exact quotes, but you’ll find them if you poke around there. The times I was at the site in the past made me feel really dirty. I refuse to ever visit that vile neighborhood of the web again. As my 80 year old uncle put it last week during our trip back home, “That manifesto strikes me as an American version of Mein Kampf, don’t you think?”

I agree NorskeFlamethrower in 123.

left vs. right humor:

i think anybody sees humor through the lens of their own experience and values. do any of us read the rightie blogs enough to see if they’re doing anything worthy of being designated as humor? i don’t. they just don’t interest me that much. and, hey, even at FDL, which i read several times almost every day, i find people that are being sanctimonious, humorless, angry, ranting and just plain clueless (maybe they’re all trolls…..heh,heh). fortunately, i find a lot more people here who are witty, intelligent and fascinating. leave us take up the challenge to be even more witty and intelligent, pungent and charcoal broiled. pass the wingnuts, please, i want something crispy before i sink my teeth into ann coulter’s right calf!…….. uhm, i meant ankle.

Stephen Parrish:

Schuster doesn’t name sources, only that “MSNBC has learned …” I interpret this to mean that he has confirming sources.

To my knowledge, this is the only instance of confirmation in the media of what we’ve all been speculating for some time.

recall those judges ruling on Judy Miller: one really really didnt want to jail that ‘reporter’ but he said in this case, things were so serious it just had to be done nevertheless. Did Fitzy clue them in on the Iran/Bomb connection?

WTF were Joe and Valerie Plame Wilson doing there after what’s been done to them by both the press and the administration?

Leonidas #141

It’s called democracy. If you want everyone marching in lockstep and not questioning the Dear Leader, that’s totalitarianism. What you advocate is the very opposite of patriotism and what this country stands for.

Leonidas -

Our adversaries could give a shit what we “look like.” Thy don’t sit around in tents and caves watching press dinners via Direct TV before formulating their plans. Moreover, it is utterly obvious to anyone whose IQ doesn’t begin with a decimal point that we are NOT united behind this idiot “President.”

green lantern –

David Schuster also mentioned “intelligence sources say…”

Guess it’s time to break out the ol’ polygraph machines yet again. They’re gonna be smokin’

Gus-
Maybe they had an inside scoop for what was to come.

John Casper,

Don’t be embarrassed for me. My mother does that already.

If you want to blame Wolcott et al for the slide in Bush’s poll numbers, go ahead. But that’s merely feeding their egos, not a reflection of reality. People don’t dump on a President because of some lacerating comments on the blogs or the jokes on basic cable. They have far more substantial reasons to be disappointed in Bush’s leadership.

It’s pretty delusional to think otherwise.

ignore troll ‘Leonidas’. His namesake was a big ole Spartan buttfuckee (not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

The very definition of clueless — Howard Kurtz chat at the Washington Post today.

“They aren’t funny. Ever. About anything”

Their idea of “funny” is suggesting that whoever they’re *out to get* has sex with their pets. That’s it in one fell swoop, it goes no further. The fact that it is so consistent and that they are so obsessive about it points to a serious, uniform mental/moral flaw in these people. Look, I’ve said it many times before, the loudmouths on the Right should be rounded up and put in the new Homeland Security Detention centers that Halliburton has been busy building, and there, given therapy and tranquilizers until they’re willing to sign a “live and let live” statement, the violation of which would place Cheetos and Twinkies out of their reach for the rest of their lives. Trust me, we would see an era of peace unparalleled in human history.

Sometimes it takes comedians to tell the truth, doesn’t it?

The Little Dictator

A few years ago there was this Hitler biopic on TV and one of the scenes was in a cabaret where the performers were mocking and ridiculing the Nazis and Hitler. Everybody in the cabaret thought it was hilarious and seemed confident that Hitler couldn’t prevail because they couldn’t take him seriously. We all know how that turned out.

Humor alone won’t win the day.

That said, Colbert cracked me up anyway. And the lack of coverage is as unsurprising as the press’ reaction to his act.

This leads to the big question. How do we get the press to cover things that are important? Judging from the Colbert experience, you sure can’t shame them into doing their job. Maybe we need to hire publicists who give out nice gift baskets.

JP Huffman-
Your mom must be a democrat. I would hope you mean take credit for the low poll numbers, but I think Bush himself can take the blame and credit for low poll numbers.

the plame/iran connection may well be much more revealing than it seems at first blush — somebody said plame was looking into some black market dealings where neocons were selling nuclear secrets to iran & to others

Shuster really is reporting that the Plame outing hurt an investigation into the Iranian nuclear programs? ??

>>>>>>>>>>>
Here’s an example of why the beltloop boys have such a hard time with Colbert’s bit (in addition to flat terror that the President will know they laughed and Snow will freeze them out). They actually do not see how inane they have become. For example, in Iraq – we’ve been training Iraqi troops. Lately, we have particularly tried to include Sunnis. So we have some trained and decide to hold a graduation (or passing out) parade. Iraqi troops are told that they are going to be deployed away from home. What happens?

Well, according to one report there was a “a rowdy near-mutiny by Iraqi Army recruits angry at being posted away from home.†The report gets a bit more specific with: “Hundreds of Sunni recruits who were told they were to deploy away from their hometowns reacted by tearing off their uniforms and yelling on Sunday at an event intended to showcase efforts to build an army embracing all ethnic and religious groups.â€

The headlines for this story? One was “Iraqi troops ready for duty: US military advisers†and another was “US keeps faith with Iraq army, 3 years after war†I’ll put the links in the next post so the moderation doesn’t hold this, but think about it. Who, living in the reality based world, would come up with “US keeps faith with Iraq army†as the headline for a story that starts off with descriptions of Sunni troops refusing deployment orders and creating havoc at their “graduation ceremony?†Isn’t “Iraqi troops ready for duty†in that story of pretty much the same import as “Bolten announces new effort at openness between White House & Press Corps by ending televised briefings.â€

OTOH, as Howie points out – it is just lovely writing compared to blogs. It’s all about the font.

Amusing Google search:
Bumiller frightening

(tee-hee)

I agree… the most powerful thing about Colbert’s appearence was the fact that most of the audience was so visibly uncomfortable. It was like Brechtian theatre.

I found it interesting that Scalia was the only one comfortable enough with himself to laugh, (and boy, he was laughin his ass off while Colbert gave him those Sicilian greetings). All the others were squirming in their seats and averting their eyes while Colbert hosed them down with a heavy dose of Reality.

Poor things. It must be so annoying when you’re trying to have a nice evening out and this Stephen Colbert fellow flaunts all the unwritten rules by rudely pointing out that, oh my goodness look! You’ve got BLOOD all over your hands!!

Why, that is simply NOT in good taste. Much prefer something in keeping with The Spirit of the Event, you know, like when President Bush pretended to look for those doggone WMD’s around the Oval office. Now THAT was hi-fuckin-larious.

Screw ‘em. 96% of the press is totally complicit in creating the debacle that is our current state of affairs. They know goddamn well they’ve gutlessly been looking the other way while the NeoCons have been raping the country.

Colbert is blowing their minds right now. I mean, did you see him toy with Kristol the other night? (”…so, Bill, uh, the New American Century… how’s that going!?”

The letter perfect persona of the pompous right wing war apologist pseudo-journalist hits them right where they live. And hard. He’s a funhouse mirror that they DON’T want to look at.

“The President’s our head of state, not just a politician.”

Such is the wisdom of Tweety in trying to diss Colbert. And Mike Allen just sits there and joins in the dissing.

Shows you how deeply Colbert’s humor has cut in slamming these suck-ups.

Tweety said the reason Colbert was so bad was that he forgot Bush is the President, not just another politician.
That guy needs treatment in a hyper-clue chamber — he’s so clue-deficient as to be almost terminal!

Norsk at 123 is correct. Just watch again what the right uses time and time again to win hearts and minds (elections). Not health care, but gay marriage. Not real issues, but red herrings. Turning public opinion toward the truth, through Colbert’s truthiness, is but one tool we need.

Lest we forget, GWB was to restore integrity, instill family values, honor to the presidency. Forget the fact that he did not do any of these things, but consider that these things are meaningless campaign jargon, anyway. And the sick part of it is that people actually buy this shit. Stephen Harper (Bushie clone) won on the same idealistic bullshit (restore integrity, stand up for Canada platform) in Canada.

Thousand points of light. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps. Smaller government (big joke).

In other words, you are on your own with the conservatives/rethugs.

Steven Colbert was not playing to that room, but to the rest of the universe who cannot stand bush. Matthews will never get it.

*ilson – Tweety still can’t understand that over half of America doesn’t just think the President is doing a bad job – they’ve moved on to dislike and distrust and “liar†and “incompetent†as their word association choices. Felon should be there and is missing, but still, he shouldn’t have to buy a clue.

Raw Story has the Shuster report up.

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2….._0501.html

If Eleanor was right that the sound machine was getting ready to gear up to try to rip into the Prosecutor, looks as if someone decided to beat them to the punch in this round.

JPH #97, we’ve got an Administration that seeks to control, muzzle, bribe and otherwise tamper with the press and media on an unprecedented scale.

You may not think that press and media folks are important, but judging from the payola doled out to conservative hacks THAT WE KNOW OF, Bush and friends sure seem to.

Colbert doing his thing was a disruption of the surreal coma that Washington has slipped into.
It’s possible that just one reporter, shamed, cajoled or emboldened by Colbert’s work, could effect HUGE change.

That could be quite historic.

Outstanding post, Jane. Keep on sticking it to the right wingers.

Mrs. K8 – So much appreciate those comments about ‘facist’ regimes being unable to tolerate, or propogate humor. Humor is almost always about truth — the truth of living can be downright funny at times.

One of the greatest humorists of my time, to me at least, was the woman who wrote “The grass is always greener over the Septic Tank”. Now there is truth. Couldn’t read more than a page or 2 before guffawing endlessly. She was writing about me and my life in the suburbs with 3 children. I would read it out loud to people and they were confused — what’s so funny about a machine eating socks endlessly.

The republicans can’t be funny because they are told what to do, what to say, how to live. To understand Colbert’s humor, one first must understand the truth/reality of what is happening in America. Republican can’t and/or don’t want to. –

Tweety said the reason Colbert was so bad was that he forgot Bush is the President, not just another politician.

you can bet your ass that wasn’t tweety’s opinion when imus skewered clinton the time he hosted. fuck him.

and if you’re interested, here’s imus’ commentary with the laughter noted; the boos seem directed at comments about press members.

http://imonthe.net/imus/ispeech.htm

the final line by Schuster is interesting too: KARL ROVE’S ATTORNEYS SAY THEY’VE BEEN TOLD BY FITZGERALD THAT NO DECISION WILL BE MADE FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER WEEK.

new fabric upstairs

Cathy,

Yes, you’re right on both counts. The Wolcotts et al would claim Bush’s decline as credit.

And yes, my mother is a Democrat so far to the left that she’d make most people commenting here look like Calvin Coolidge. But I’m a Democrat too, so that’s the one thing she doesn’t hold against me.

GrandmaJ says:
May 1st, 2006 at 3:08 pm

Are you referring to Erma Bombeck?

JPH –

Why no comment on my point that it is pretty much universally acknowledged (and remarked upon often by the right, BTW) that subversive humor was/is considered to have been absolutely essential to the morale of the public during the reign of totalitarian regimes in the former Soviet Union?

*ilson –

“Hyper-clue chamber” — You crack me up! I want permission to steal this term.

Thanks to the comments at Matt O’s post on Sat eve I actually tuned in via cspan internet and got to watch most of Colbert. First time I’ve ever watched him (non-TV). I didn’t find it funny at all, not in a ha-ha sort of way, that it is. So, if someone in the slot was supposed to have everyone in the audience rolling with hilarity and drunken good humor, yeah, he was an utter failure, by not doing what was expected of him. But I loved every moment of it, even if I wasn’t laughing out loud. I was utterly transfixed. He was trenchant, biting, and cut way close to the bone. Brilliant.

i have a tech question — does anyone else experience a huge delay between typing and when the characters actually show. it doesnt happen anyplace else but fdl, and i have no idea what’s going on. and it’s annoying as hell.

any suggestions would be appreciated. thanks.

Huffman’s mom is a Democrat. It’s why we have hope for him.

Love ya, John ;) Thanks for stopping by. Always good to hear from you.

I LOVE FROOMKIN. He is another national treasure. What a writer, and the way he presents all this material is brilliant.

Gus @ 150– enjoying themselves immensely, from what I could see.

They were outed and then when out to enjoy the bonfire.

More than a few of those present must have squirmed delightfully. I just hope this is the first of many fun days ahead for the couple– when they are vindicated.

timewarp #23.

Pecksniffery is an actual word. Noun.- Synonym for Hypocrisy

As they say:

“If you don’t like the reflection, don’t blame the mirror.”

Followed the link for Special Ed, and when I saw the ad for Condi 2008, decided I had no further interest in the site. When I clicked to close, couldn’t, then clicked the x icon to get rid of the window, couldn’t, finally had to click the force close button. Apparently, something is happening to visitors when they enter the site. Typically, such delay for closing occurs when the site’s server is still requesting/collecting info for visitor. In this case, I am convinced they were collecting unusual amount (much like MS likes to do). I would suggest you forewarn readers when you link to arrogant right-wing sites like this, where the odds of intrusive abuse tends to occur.

You left out Fafblog (alas seemingly no more, although I hope tis not true), although I will admit it might be a little too surreal for some.

But you left out Fafblog. Bad FDL. Bad.

I don’t think Colbert’s speach was particularly funny either, but unlike the repug apologists, I think it was important, brave, speaking truth to power and all those good ponylicious things.

Maybe I should lighten up, but whether it was funny or not seems to miss the point.

Mercury,

If there’s one thing Karl Rove has proved, it’s that the media doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as it thinks it does. Whatever your opinion of the elections of 2000 and 2004, the one obviously element in them was that Rove consciously bypassed the media and at least a substantial portion of the American public liked that.

Relying on the media — and joke tellers — as the vanguard of a resurgent left is plain silly. And thinking anything that happens at a Correspondents’ Dinner matters much is astonishing. If your view of history is that it hinges on someone “speaking truthiness” to George Bush at a banquet, you’re not being serious.

Thanks Jane. Your faith that my soul may turn invigorates me.

EPU –

Not to worry. If you love Fafblog, you’re in no need of “lightening up” — get any lighter, and you’ll start floating away!

the exception that proves the rule: Scott Stantis, of Prickly City and the Alabama Birmingham News can be pretty funny sometimes. Of course, I don’t know if he’s exactly a conservative…

JPH- it was historic in the sense that it was probably the first time someone has stood up in public and told Bush the unvarnished truth- and Bush had to sit there and take it. Not clear from your posts- did you watch?

LindaH 185

As in sniff but don’t touch?

Margot at 107 ; verbatim from my two sons (17 and 22) !

We’ve been quoting the performance back and forth for the last 18 hours !

gus(#150):

that just shows you what a small town washington actually is. the wilson’s go to the same CHURCH as rover boy. they just attend a different service (the one with parents of young children). you bet they went. just another way to make the right people get their knickers all twisty. you do know that joe wilson went to a meeting with sadaam husein wearing a noose around his neck don’t you? the saadman had made some blustering threat about hanging people (right before the first gulf war). wilson’s balls are in the same category as colbert’s, methinks.

Please. These people are just disappointed to find out that Colbert Report is a PARODY!! When you watch it, you can hear some in the audience who sound like they really believe that Colbert is the new O’Reilly. Pathetic, really.

JP Huffman – I wouldn’t put all my eggs in the humor/comedian basket, but I wouldn’t discount it as an important medium either.

Johnny Carson “joking” about Nixon and Watergate is credited by serious people with helping bring Nixon down. Were other factors more important? Sure. But in terms of popular opinion, Carson and his nightly monologue was very important.

Q. How many conservatives does it take to change a light-bulb?
A. That’s not funny!

Gus 150
I beleive Mrs. Joe Wilson answered your question thussly:
“I’m wearing Armani”

right, not in the spirit of the evening.

Bush has violated the spirit and the letter of the United States constitution, US criminal law, and international law, not to mention ordinary and customary political and governmental courtesy and tradition, and personal character and honesty. Tens of thousands have died, been imprisoned, kidnapped, and or tortured because of his illegal, immoral and dishonest actions. How dare ANYONE suggest that he deserves ANYTHING in the way of deference.

JPH #189, there’s a hell of a lot of dead soldiers and Iraqis who might beg to differ about your assessment of the importance of media in public policy-making.

If we’d had a press corps that Stephen Colbert didn’t have to lambaste a lot more people would be alive and George Bush wouldn’t be sitting in the White House, period.

As far as Rove bypassing the media, I can only say: “Huh?!?” Armstrong Williams, the New York Times, The Washington Post and Fox News don’t count?

And whoever said Colbert was going to change the world on his own, or that “lefties” were relying on madcap funnymen to do it? Not me.

I think you read that one on StrawMan.com.

I’m late to the party, as usual, but I just had to express my sheer joy for and total awe of Jane’s use of her extraordinary vocabulary.

If there is a phrase more snarkdiferous than “self-righteous pecksniffery”, I’ve certainly never come across it. My mind is boggled at the sheer elegance of it. Hunter S. Thompson may have wept, had he lived to read that phrase.

Well done, Jane!

Unarmed? Not really. The cover they get more than makes up for their lack of real firepower.

It’s the material

Blowjob = Funny

Incompetence, corruption, phony war, death, destruction, etc., etc., = Not Funny.

1,039 DAYS AND THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON…

John Pearley Huffman,

I would like to save you some time and embarrassment and suggest that you read the thoughts and contributions of the folks here and understand them before ya go chargin’ off chasin’ all those windmills that they churn up in yer mind.

The folks here have intelligence informed by experience and are committed to advancing freedom in the face of tyranny…they also have shit detectors that alert to pompous expressions of pseudo-sophistication. So before ya take after someone with the chops of a John Casper, I suggest ya read and digest what he has ta say…or you will end up so humiliated you’ll hafta breathe thru yer open-toed sandals.

KEEP THE FAITH AND GET THE FUCK OUTTA THE WAY IF YA DON’T HAVE SOMETHIN TA CONTRIBUTE!!

Mrs. K8,

Since you’ve asked for my comment, here I go.

I have nothing against humor and feel it’s as much a part of the political conversation as anything else. But let’s not build it up to be more than it was.

Subversive humor in the Soviet Union may have been part of bucking up against the murderous thuggery of Stalin, but lets also realize that there never was a substantial popular uprising there against the Communists. Humor may have been a coping device there, but there’s little evidence that it was an agent for change. And I’d wager that all the jokes ever told in the USSR had less practical effect on bringing the evils of that regime to light than did Solshenitzyn’s The Gulag Archipelago. (I surely misspelled that name, forgive me).

Humor usually isn’t an agent for change, it’s a distraction. Going with the Soviet system again, the more substantial challenge there came from the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe and the ever-more-apparent economic backwardness of the place. Ridicule had little — really nothing — to do with the change that took place.

And come on, if Colbert had made those jokes in front of the Politburo we’d never have had them broadcast on whatever the Soviet equivalent to C-SPAN was, and he would have been summarily executed. Instead he goes back to working for Comedy Central — a commercial cable outlet owned by a large corporation Viacom. Was Colbert roughed up by the secret police on the way out? Have advertisers pulled out of his TV show? Has Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone even sent him a nasty note? Come on, he’s still cashing a plush check every week, he’s still free to say what he wants and has a platform to say it, and he’s picked up a whole flock of new left wing fans. Some “bravery” that took.

Plus, he was invited to appear at the dinner. It’s not like he didn’t deliver what they should have expected.

By the way, I love both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I just don’t see them as revolutionary outlets or as depositories of political courage. They’re just funny.

NorskeFlameThrower,

That I could inspire anything like your post at #206 here makes me proud beyond measure.

You’ve made my week.

1,039 days and the killing goes on and on…

John Pearley Huffman,

(Sigh)…I hope you read and spend whatever time it will take you to understand Mrs. K8 when she responds to you (as I know she will because she is a natural born teacher and takes cases like yers on when no one else will waste their breath).

KEEP THE FAITH AND DON’T SHOOT IT UNTIL YA UNDERSTAND IT!!!

Send Stephen Colbert the props and respect he deserves by signing your name at the “Thank You Stephen Colbert” site:

Click here to say:
Thank You Stephen Colbert

A little off topic but I wanted to share this.
I just posted the following at Urbandictionary.com as the definition of “big balls”. I am not sure if they will accept it but..

big balls

What Stephen Colbert has that enables him to speak the truth about the Bush White House and the White House Corespondents.
Used in a sentence:
Stephen Colbert had big balls when he skewered the White House Corespondents and lampooned the Bush Administration at the White House Correspondents Dinner 2006.

Colbert did an interview with William Cristol (PNAC) last week and Bill made a remark about having hleped SC with his speech AND the video for the Correspondent’s Dinner….

He turned Cristol into jelly by asking about the PNAC, btw….

This is the only thing I have witnessed in the mainstream media since the start of WMD that even begins to reflect the seething, unbridled rage that most of my friends and I, and, I suspect, a good deal of the rest of the world feel toward this low-normal, failed Wal-Mart Manager of a president of yours (he’s not mine).

Scalia thought he was funny!!!!

JPH, I’ll grant you that Colbert isn’t rapelling down cliff faces or blowing up bridges with the French Resistance — but if his brand of “bravery” is so easy, why the hell don’t we see more of it in our media, the only place the American people really have to get an inkling of the workings of power?

The truth is that Colbert was far more “serious” in challenging the underlying dishonesty of the official line than the pack of clowns sitting in that audience — and that’s their fucking JOB DESCRIPTION.

Speaking of Goops and jokes –

Jane reminded me of this nugget from the mid-90’s; you know, Contract on America days. At the time there was this joke going around:

Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can.

I thought it was pretty funny the first time I heard it. Maybe not.

Anyway, somebody — Newt, or Dick Armey, or DeLay, somebody like that — gave this rendition in response to a question about why they weren’t going to do something (that I’ll call “friggle the snork”):

Q. “Congressman, why did your group decide not to friggle the snork?”
A. “Why does a dog lick his balls? Because he can. Why aren’t we going to friggle the snork? Because we can’t.”
And the rest of the boys burst out laughing.

Mercury,

I don’t agree with your assessment of the media — in general. There are so many outlets reporting on the Bush administration from so many view points that it’s tough to argue that it isn’t being covered from somewhere.

In particular — I’m no fan of the White House press corps no matter what administration is in power. After all, Woodward and Bernstein were WaPo Metro reporters when they broke Watergate. The White House press corps has always been more interested in dinners and meeting celebrit comics than reporting on anything.

JPH, it’s true: if you spend hours combing the internet for political news, you can find plenty to keep you outraged. But will you see it on CNN? On Fox? Or anywhere busy, overworked average Americans with families regularly check out?

They deserve the truth.

You seem to assume that there’s a level playing field as far as the media’s concerned.

I think any regular reader of this blog could cite chapter and verse plenty of evidence of the way corporate media concentration, Administration tampering and beltway journalistic careerism have dangerously degraded political discourse in the past decade or so — and especially in the last five, for sure.

Right-wing humor? Oh, like this:

The Nixon I remembered was absolutely humorless;
I couldn’t imagine him laughing at anything except maybe a paraplegic who wanted to vote Democratic but couldn’t quite reach the lever on the voting machine.

-From Presenting: The Richard Nixon Doll (Overhauled 1968 Model), by Hunter S. Thompson

darkblack — that is fabulous.

Stuart Thiel says:
May 1st, 2006 at 4:14 pm

BTW, thanks much for answering the email I sent you asking about the lumping of data (moderately dissatisfied/ extremely dissatisfied). I only recently discovered your pollkatz site, but it is great.

The right has Clinton dick jokes coming out of it’s arsehole. The same jokes that have also been Leno and Letterman’s bread-and-butter for nearly a decade. ( sear Newsmax )

And speaking of the big dog is this latest ‘ leak’ really just another blame Clinton move by the right’s Rasputin?

I mean Bill’s boys sent the Iranian’s some nucucular plan’s didn’t they?

Big boo boo for Bubba so they say – perfect red herring for the right. Tell me to lay off the anchovies.

I don’t have the time to research every MSM gasbag’s remarks, but it seems like they are all focussed–superficially–on whether SC hit too hard on Bush. As if half the sketch was not a direct attack on them. Funny how they don’t mention that part. I’m sure they aren’t using their concern about Bush’s feelings as a foil for getting back at SC on a personal level. That would be childish and petty, so unlike our press.

I posted the following poem on

http://thankyoustephencolbert.org

as a tribute to Colbert’s star performance:

Tsars, Kings, Emperors,
sovereigns of all the earth,
have commanded many a parade,
but they cannot command Humor.

When Aesop, the tramp, came visiting
the palaces of eminent personages,
ensconced in sleek comfort all day,
they struck him as paupers.

In houses where hypocrites have
left the mark of their puny feet,
there Hodja-Nasr-ed-Din, with his jests,
swept aside their banalities like a board of chessmen!

They tried to buy Humor–
but Humor is not for sale!
They tried to murder Humor,
but Humor thumbed his nose at them!

It’s a hard busines to fight Humor.
They executed him time and again.
His hacked-off head was stuck on the point of a pike.

But as soon as the funeral pipes
began their plaintive song,
Humor defiantly cried: “I’m back, I’m here!”,
and broke into a dashing dance.

In an overcoat, shabby and short,
with eyes cast down and a mask of repentance,
Humor, a political criminal now under arrest,
walked to his execution.

He appeared to submit in every way,
accepting the life-beyond,
but all of a sudden he wriggled out
of his coat, and, waving his hand, escaped.

Humor was shoved into cells,
but like hell that did any good.
Humor went straight through
prison bars and walls of stone.

Coughing from frozen lungs
like any man in the ranks,
Humor marched, singing a popular ditty,
rifle in hand upon the Winter Palace.

He’s accustomed to frowning looks,
but they do him no harm;
and Humor regards himself at times
with humor.

He’s everpresent.
Nimble and quick,
he’ll slip through anything,
through everyone.

So glory be to humor.
He is a valiant fellow!

“Humor” — Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Don’t forget Driftglass in your list of those you don’t want to mess with! Almost every single one of his rants is memorable.

Other than that, agreed with everything you wrote. There’s nobody on the GOP blogs worth reading whether for information or entertainment or literature.

Froomkin was great today – Must Read Column.
Tomorrow will be even better – Mustest Read.

Frookmin today:

I’ll have more in tomorrow’s column about my own personal experiences on Saturday night. Short version: I met Karl Rove, but I didn’t feel good about it.

Giblets! How can you forget about Giblets, the finest warrior against Islamodimminijihadfascism that the internets has known! He will destroy the so-called “humorists of the” left! And all humorists of the right! and the humerous in the center at the New Republic, that sits in the corner, rocking in its chair and muttering curses under its breath! The New Republic will show you, Jane Hamsher! And Giblets will show them all!

As in the days of Kings and court Jesters, “the fool wasn’t kidding.”

Shorter JPH: I’m a serious Democrat! I take things seriously!!

anyone else get the idea he’s a TNR subscriber?

Mike Allen and Tweety make a perfect pair. The corporate masters must have passed the word it would be yes to Bush’s skit and no to Colbert’s. Even Olbermann was sticking to the party line that Colbert was over the top. Thankfully bloggers won’t be silenced.

To be fair, P.J. O’Rourke is incredibly funny. Must be the exception that proves the rule.

There have been funny right-wing comics–P. J. O’Rorke (author of “Republican Party Animal,” “Give War A Chance,” etc.) springs to mind. But you are correct that the key was a solid grounding in the truth. That makes it well neigh impossible for them in the present day, now that “reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

– MarkusQ

If a man insisted always on being serious, and never allowed himself a bit of fun and relaxation, he would go mad or become unstable without knowing it.
Herodotus (484 BC – 430 BC), The Histories of Herodotus

Colbert did one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen. I fantasize about having such an opportunity, but would never have the balls (or talent) to do it. I can’t imagine how he pulled that off. The guy has icewater in his veins.

By the way, the Times has a link allowing you to email the Kook-Aid slurping Elizabeth Bumiller.

Here’s what I sentm for example:

Dear Ms Bumiller,

It’s interesting to see that you find yourself above reporting the presence of Stephen Colbert at the Correspondents’ Dinner. You are certainly a paragon of good taste. Your ability to blank out the deaths of countless Iraqis, as well as thousands of Americans, in a war you helped lie into fruition is a sterling example your refined aesthetic.

One question, since you continue to represent yourself as a journalist: have you ever heard of I.F. Stone?

OMG. Among your humorists, how could you not include Fafblog, Tom Burka or Andrew Northrup of The Poorman?

You’re hereby sentenced to 30 days of Benny Hill reruns.

I fear Wolcott, Billmon and . . .

Jane Hamsher.

Don’t you know that the Right finds Ann Coulter halarious? ‘It’s funny because it’s TRUE”, they tell each other between h’yuks. She is the Right’s Colbert.

“THE ILLUSION OF AUTONOMY”
by Eric Berne
author of Games People Play

The road to freedom is through laughter, and until he learns that, man will be enslaved, either subservient to his masters or fighting to serve under a new master. The masters know this very well and that is why they are masters. The last thing they will allow is unseemly laughter. In freer countries, every college has its humor magazine, but there are no such jokes in slave-holding nations like Nazi Germany or Arabia. Authority cannot be killed by force for wherever one head is cut off, another springs up in its place. It can only be laughed away, as Sun Tzu knew when he founded the science of military discipline. He first demonstrated this to the Emperor by using girls from the harem, but they giggled when he gave his orders. He knew that as long as they were laughing, discipline wouldn’t work. So he stopped their laughing by executing two of them, and after that the rest did as they were told–solemnly and indignantly. Conversely, no comedian has ever been the head of a state for very long; the people might stand it, but he couldn’t.

“I fear no one on the right. Ever.”

Jane, that sentence and sentiment is the best pinprick for any fascist gasbag including the Hindenburg.

Indeed Mr. Hayden,

I am a total lurker, but you force me to comment.

Please, please, update the post and include Fafblog and the Poorman !

Wolcott weighs in on Colbert. As usual, he’s a hoot and he’s right.

http://www.jameswolcott.com/

You are right when you say that “humor is always an outgrowth of truth”. It brings to mind what George Bernard Shaw said in his play- John Bull’s Other Island: “My way of joking is to tell the truth. It’s the funniest joke in the world”.

It would be remiss not to include another quote from Shaw, this from his play- Annajanska: “All great truths began as blasphemies”.

Sorry if someone already said that Imus was rude to Clinton, and I don’t think Faux News complained about that.

Drchilledair #213>”This is the only thing…(he’s not mine).”

Amen brother, say it !

“…The growth of state power is…the consequence of the community’s effort to protect itself against irresponsible economic power.” – Reinhold Niebuhr

Colbert was a bit rude consdering the venue, but he made the right call. There are a growing number of people who’d forgo formal niceness to tell Bush to his face what they think of his government. Colbert had the President’s undivided attention, and used that tiem well.

self-depredating as in, well the way Don Imus ripped into Clinton.

Stephen Colbert (and let’s not forget Thomas) are to be commended for their truthfulness and courage. In a room filled with automatons, they were able to push people into some form of recognition, even if it was only the foggy first moments of intuiting that the rules of weak-minded decorousness had been transgressed . Intelligent, incisive humour cut through what Marshall McLuhan has so keenly identified as the communal `perceptual narcosis’ that so often characterizes the cultural and intellectual nadirs of an age. Certainly Colbert knew that the room would be uncomfortable. He counted on it as much as he counted on the millions watching the broadcast to recognize and be revolted by the humourlessness of the damned televised bunch. The unsmiling president, and through extension the whole squirming, teeth-gritting lot, become the hideous Jorge from Eco’s The Name of the Rose, ranting that “[l]aughter is weakness, corruption, the foolishness of our flesh. Laughter remains base, a defense for the simple, a mystery desecrated for the plebeians.†The carnivalesque, topsy-turvy performance of Colbert –like an illuminated monkey dancing in bishop’s robes along the manuscript edge of the solemnly impressed `word of God’—figuratively unseated the tight-assed group assembled and gave those at home some serious comic relief and serious pause. That beautiful thinker Auden was all too right when he said that those who live without laughter “turn into insane lovers of powerâ€.

HAD to pass on these comments from your typical trashy gossip site (save for a surprisingly high interest in Colbert…):

1) “Colbert is a superrockstar”.

2) “I would totally do Stephen Colbert”.

Colbert’s just a man. A real man. Not a child like the preznit. A grown-up with balls and humility and responsibility.

Witty conservatives: Winston Churchill and H.L. Mencken. Possibly also Ambrose Bierce, tho’ it’s not clear how conservative Bierce really was. Mort Sahl is also something of conservative as well or has become so. To be sure, Mencken would horrify the right culture warriors. Like Churchill, he was at heart an aristocrat: not an upper class twit, but an upper class wit (tho’ he was of middle class origins). William Buckley in his prime had rather a dry and droll sense of humour. And as has been noted above, Scalia found Colbert’s act funny, and Scalia is certainly a conservative. (Sample Churchill quote: “Mr. Atlee is a modest man, and he has much to be modest about.” I suspect even some Labour party folks thought that was funny.)

You forgot to mention Joe Bageant.

I think this shows the utter lack of understanding of humor on the right, from OpinionJournal’s James Taranto:

Here’s an example, the line we thought funniest:

Mayor Nagin! Mayor [Ray] Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I’d like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center.

This drew a hearty laugh from the audience–and anyone who’s familiar with the demographics of Washington can see why. But Colbert then lost control of his metaphor:

And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It’s a Mallomar, I guess is what I’m describing, a seasonal cookie.

A graham cracker crust of corruption? Huh?

The joke Taranto finds funniest isn’t even really a joke – it’s a setup, a parody of a hacky rewording of Nagin’s clumsy statement. When the actual punchline comes, what Taranto calls “losing control of the metaphor”, he berates it.

It’s one thing to not find the premise of the joke funny, but it takes a double shot of wingnuttery to not even understand the basic structure of the joke itself.

And there’s the rub. I think many who complain about Colbert’s performance didn’t get it in the purest literal sense. It’s not just that they didn’t find it funny, they obviously didn’t even understand when and how it was supposed to be funny.

This would be amusing if it didn’t point to this deep malaise of the right that’s tainting all of America.

John Pearley Huffman, you write well but i believe you take things out of context and build straw men to support a dishonest position. here’s some answers (snark-free and on topic).

“doesn’t really mean much beyond the fact that someone chuckles for a moment.”

As someone else asked, did you see the event? the people Colbert was speaking at were soon not laughing. his fans, on the other hand, will remember this for a long time. i doubt anyone with an interest in politics was just mildy amused (or mildy unamused) by what happened there.

“When “the wits of the liberal blogosphere sit down behind their keyboards and start tapping out daggers, slicing up the right with eviscerating humor that cuts to the bone, they know full well they are going into battle with unarmed opponents,†all they’re doing is playing to the true believers and scoring a few yucks.”

Yes, we’re so impressed with Colbert because he actually took it to people on the other side. and i dont think many people, of any political persuasion, either way around, could do that, and do it how they intended.

“The hard part is coming up with alternative agendas that attract voters”

What’s the use of an agenda if no one hears it? More specifically, if the audience don’t have a foundation of truth on which to form their response. This was one of Colbert’s points when he attacked the Press.

“People don’t dump on a President because of some lacerating comments on the blogs”

IMHO if one person at the Press Assoc. dinner or watching on TV recognised some truth in what Colbert was saying, and/or was stimulated to think, it was worth his effort. Even if people who already agree are emboldened to speak up, that’s an affect too.

“Karl Rove has proved, it’s that the media doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as it thinks it does.”

Rove is very good at using the media, its part of what he does best for his party. see the presidential photo ops Colbert referred to – was Rove not involved?

“Relying on the media — and joke tellers — as the vanguard of a resurgent left is plain silly.”

None who are serious on the left believe humour is a replacement for anything else. It’s a tool – or a vehicle that Colbert used to deliver very serious points. (and yes, some of the left are pretty desperate, for various reasons outside the scope of this). (I believe Colbert was funny, but in quite a complex sense of funny that i can’t get into here. and i appreciate not everyone will enjoy that type of humour. i like to think i’d still see it as funny were the politics reversed, but thats even more complex to discuss!).

“thinking anything that happens at a Correspondents’ Dinner matters much is astonishing”

It may or may not have some impact on politicians or the media. At the least, it’s going to entertain millions of people via internet copies.

“I love both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. I just don’t see them as revolutionary outlets or as depositories of political courage. They’re just funny.”

I disagree: Bush and his lookalike Bridges at same event were trying to be “just funny”. To clarify, i think “just funny” means amusing for the moment, but not lasting or challenging to the status quo. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are aiming for funny, honest and challenging. Many of us believe they succeed. The range of response supports that.

“The White House press corps has always been more interested in dinners and meeting celebrit comics than reporting on anything”

Possibly a true generalisation. That doesn’t exclude the possibility that there’s a degree of collusion, unanimity, conformity between the white house and press that is new and could have bad consequences for a democracy.

Ok that’s long enough for my first post on FDL, long time reader.

Immortality is Colbert’s. Best comedy routine I’ve seen in years…

What can one say? How often does one see comedic genius and courage rolled up into one man? The mainly negative MSM response speaks volumns about his performance and gives even more lustre to his truthtelling, something the MSM has little practice of doing. Yes, something worth retelling about happened that evening..Bravo and thanks for your patriotism Mr.Colbert..

To those who bleat the White House Correspondents’ dinner was not the proper venue for Colbert’s roast, perhaps we are being asked to assume the traditional media has been waiting for over five years for the proper venue to report in earnest what Colbert did in jest.

Colbert is an 11 on a scale of manliness.I especially like the Scalia snark. He certainly gave us French a lot of vicarious je ne sais quoi.

*ilson46201, you missed Solon, dude.

Shame to have not listed the Poor Man Institute among the comic geniuses of the left.

Smiff,

I don’ t put anything I write above criticism and accept some of your points. Let me honor your effort with a similar response.

My comment “doesn’t really mean much beyond the fact that someone chuckles for a moment†is general in nature — about comedy in the broadest sense — and not about the specific Colbert performance. I disagree with the basic premise that comedy is a particularly potent political force. It’s not that comedy has ZERO political force, only that it’s LIMITED in actually inspiring political action. No matter what a comedian does, their first obligation is to inspire laughs, not political change.

I saw the event on a C-SPAN replay. I didn’t think it was Colbert’s best stuff or worst. He’s been funnier and more pointed. And I think liberals are making a big assumption when they adopt Colbert as one of their own. After all what he was doing at the Correspondent’s dinner was telling some jokes, not articulating policy positions. Who really knows where Colbert stands other than for telling jokes at the President’s expense while the President is sitting there.

Of course an agenda is pointless without it being effectively sold to the public – of course it needs to be “heard.” My point is, again, a general one. It’s one thing to criticize with eviscerating wit, and something else altogether to present an alternative that attracts voters. Tearing down the Bush administration is easy… but ultimately it does nothing to get the electorate to seek an alternative. It’s just playing to the converted.

As to Karl Rove, I should have been more specific in what I wrote. Rove bypassed traditional, mainstream media in sending his political messages. Direct mail, internet, grassroots organization and a disdain for the Washington press corps all helped in selling Bush as an outsider during his two elections. Having the mainstream press on your side doesn’t mean much when it comes to being elected President of the United States. And Karl Rove proved it.

Humor may be a tool, but it’s small one. And it’s not the same as substance.

I, of course, think you invest “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” with too much meaning. But that’s you’re take, and you’re welcome to it.

On the other hand, I completely disagree with you that “there’s a degree of collusion, unanimity, conformity between the White House and press that is new and could have bad consequences for a democracy.”

The collusion between the press and White House goes back to the very founding of this flawed republic. The press essentially didn’t report that FDR was in a wheelchair. They never mentioned JFK’s mistresses and health problems. White House correspondents have always been mesmerized by the power that surrounds them and never done a particularl good job of covering what’s supposed to be their beat. But our democracy has managed to carry on anyhow.

Finally, my position is an honest one. In that it’s honestly my position. I don’t believe your characterization of it as dishonest is either fair or accurate.

Thanks for taking the time to consider and reply to my previous posts.

I’ve been saying this for years: Conservatives are immune to irony. It’s the only logical explanation.

i believe that whomever hired colbert for the gig didn’t get his show. they thought he was the jon stewart for the right. apparently not bright enough tho get the sarcasm.

Well, I emailed Comedy Central thanking Colbert, and I tell you, “rearranging chairs on the Hindenberg” will be a new classic. Bet on it. I expunged my beverage though my nasal cavity just like in animated shorts.

John Pearley Huffman says:

May 2nd, 2006 at 8:28 am
[snip]
And I think liberals are making a big assumption when they adopt Colbert as one of their own.

If you want to understand why Colbert was invited, look no further than that comment.

There was another ‘winger idiot online yesterday actually trying to make the argument that Colbert is a “small-government” conservative due to his “The best government is the government that governs least” setup to his Iraq zinger.

Sorry Charlies, you get boomer has-been Dennis “Where’d my career go?” Miller.

I understand that the main course at next year’s WH Correspondents’ Dinner will be Roast Irish Baby.

I suspect some of the disconnect between the two “sides” has to do with the objects of their humor. The right tends to make fun of those it detests: intellectuals, poor people, minorities, etc. The left does the same, attacking robber barons, authoritarians, fascists, etc. I think the reason WHY I find “lefty” humor funnier, is because I think that the left’s targets are often far more deserving of derision than the right’s. What we laugh at says much more about the laugher than the object of the humor. What does it say about a person who finds genocide humorous?

As far as TDS and the Colbert Report, those are actually very interesting vehicles. Comedy, specifically, ironic comedy, is actually quite powerful because the disconnect between the stated words and the meaning behind them requires the development and use of critical thinking. The more you are exposed to it, the better you get at it. What these two shows are doing is specifically attacking the presentation of the modern media. It is an attempt to train the audience to look beyond the simplistic narratives presented and understand WHY the media says what it says in the first place. They are going after the FORM of the media and directing their viewers to see through it to the underlying reasons behind the presentation. Why the news might choose to cover what it does. Why the camera is directed where it is, so to speak. They HAVE to be comedies, because they would be incredible boring to watch, ineffective and pretentious otherwise. But there are plenty of OTHER types of comedy that is a lot easier to do than the satirical and irony-laden shows that they do.

What is the effect of watching (and ‘getting’) the Colbert Report? You come to view the right-wing pundit shows (like O’Reilly) as farces. Now, one might say that the ONLY people who would watch the Colbert Report in the first place already believe that, but I don’t think that is the case, and that is why Colbert walks a very thin line. He has to make his character believable, but still make it apparent that he is a ridiculous idiot. Tough job.

George Orwell,

I’m baffled by your comment. What does my cited assertion have to do with how Colbert came to be invited to the Correspondents’ Dinner? I didn’t have anything to do with the invitation. All I wrote was that liberals adopting Colbert are working on an assumption. They may be right or they may be wrong, but the evidence either way is scant.

But since I’ve been lumped in with “another ‘winger idiot” I guess I should defend myself to this extent: I don’t think my politics are either particularly left- or particularly right-wing. But I do try and avoid calling names. And I’ve been commenting on my friend Jane’s blog since way back when there were just one or two comments on a post instead of hundreds. If I didn’t think Firedoglake wasn’t worthwhile (even though I often — even usually — disagree with Jane and her fellow posters) I wouldn’t bother commenting at all.

You know what’s funny, John Pearley Huffman? (Other than your “neither left or right lie”. Next thing you’ll be telling us that you “yoostabee” a Democrat.)

You ‘wingers fall all over yourselves screaming “Liberal bias! Liberal bias!” at the top of your lungs, then miss it completely when it’s rubbed in your face.

Stephen Colbert has stated again and again that his show is an indictment of the brainless idiot pundits of the right. He doesn’t harbor some secret sympathy with your side, he’s not going to start throwing flowers.

Like us and Jon Stewart, Colbert thinks that O’Really, Sean Handjob, and Lameballs are an infected zit on the ass of our country. (Very apt in Rush’s case.)

I’ll apologize ahead of time, because I’m sure you;ll be twisting your hankey over my tone, but 2,500 dead soldiers, 20,000 maimed soldiers, 10s of 1,000s of dead Iraquis, and $330,000,000,000 spent makes me less civil. Not to mention secret prisons, torture, and record deficits.

Stephen Colbert inteview in “The Onion”

Having a sense of humor requires that one have a sense of irony. Literalists always view irony with suspicion, fearing as they do that they may be the butt of what is being said. Since so large a chunk of the right wing consists of religious literalists–with the rest of them being political literalist–we should not be surprised that Colbert left them uneasy. By the way, Freud noted in passing that sociopaths were invariably literalists, but as far as I know no one has ever investigated whether the reverse is true, that literalists are sociopaths.

Nothing Colbert said could be considered nearly as offensive to our soldiers as Bush was at a previous dinner when he cracked jokes to a tape of himself searching the White House for WMDs.

All I wrote was that liberals adopting Colbert are working on an assumption. They may be right or they may be wrong, but the evidence either way is scant.

About as scant as the evidence that Charlie McCarthy was a ventriloquist’s dummy. Anyone who doesn’t understand what Colbert is doing and what he’s lampooning has some kind of serious cognitive impairment.

Being called a liar is an interesting experience when it comes from someone unwilling to sign their own name to it. But so be it. If we’re at the point where disagreeing with the assessment of a comedy routine becomes an ideological litmus test, it’s no longer a discussion worth continuing.

Oh, the devastating “real name” bullshite! How about if I use the handle “Publius”? You know who that was? Look it up under “Federalist Papers”.

Anybody that knows a single thing about the profession of comedy knows that Colbert hit the ball out of the park with his intended audience, the 65%+ of us living in the reality of this nightmare. Only shamed and cowed media whores and their GOP masters refuse to see that.

If you won’t believe me, read professional screenwriter and former touring comedian John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey. He brilliantly deconstructs what Colbert accomplished.

Any and all professional comedians and humorists I’ve seen weighing in on Colbert’s performance have lauded it for timing, material and – of course – balls.

Those who slam it seem to invariably do so from a standpoint of not knowing word one about how humor is constructed or performed.

‘Nuff said.

John Pearley Huffman, thanks, i respect your point of view, and apologise for calling what you wrote before dishonest; it seems a legitimate difference of opinion. really it’s remarkable that we can even discuss reasonably something this controversial. i will concede that Colbert probably won’t have very much political effect (though most of us here wish it would). so where it’s probably significant is as a piece of comedy/satire – as you and others have said, the content alone was not really new. taken as a whole though, it was, and i think many of us will always believe SC was something special there ;)

Pecksniff isn’t an actual word. It is, as one of the other posters commented, the name of the villain in Martin Chuzzlewit. I bought the Oxford Illustrated Dickens a few years back during the Christmas sale. 21 volumes for something like nine bucks a volume. No finer investment anyone can make. Pecksniff is the moralizer of the novel who steals the architectural work of the title character and then does what he can to bury the boy. Smarmy, sanctimonious, smug… hypocrisy alone doesn’t really encapsulate Seth Pecksniff.

The best Dickens villain is Alfred Jingle, who is something like a cross between Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Kramer from Seinfeld.

Smiff,

Thanks for being so civil. I hope we’ll get a chance to discuss whatever else arises soon.

Although I am a conservative I don’t think of myself as humorless. And I have many liberal readers of my modest blog despite the fact that I sometimes skewer liberals, perhaps because my arguments are so reasonable. You might want to check out my piece on Stephen Colbert, for example, in which I chastize the liberal media for attacking Colbert for his conservative views, although I do so very politely.