ballsalicious
Editor and Publisher
Probably to no one's surprise, Jon Stewart, host of Comedy Central's "Daily Show," hailed the performance of his stablemate Stephen Colbert at Saturday night's White House Correspondents dinner. Colbert's lampooning of the president and the press has generated a good deal of praise and criticism.
"It was balls-alicious," Stewart said. "Apparently he was under the impression that they'd hired him to do what he does every night on television"--that is, make fun of conservatives, public officials and the press in the guise of an O'Reillyesque talk show host.
"We've never been prouder of him, but HOLY shit," Stewart added.
He also described the annual dinner as "where the President and the press corps consummate their loveless marriage."
Colbert then followed Stewart, on his own show, "The Colbert Report," describing the "honor of appearing" at the big dinner. He said the room was full of "power players" so he "fit right in."
"Best of all, I got to meet my main man, President Bush," he said, and even had a chance to shake his hand. "He has very soft hands," Colbert revealed, "which was surprising. He must wear gloves when he is clearing brush."
Colbert made fun of his mixed reception at the dinner, re-running the tape of one of his jokes with the audience barely reacting. He described this as "very respectful silence," and said that actually the crowd loved him.
"They practically carried me out on their shoulders," he said, "even though I wasn't ready to go."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-durang/ignoring-colbert-part-tw_b_20130.html
"But the mainstream media is apparently ignoring this part of the evening, and instead is covering the early entertainment where Bush and a look-alike imitator do a "he says this, he's really thinking this" routine. Moderately amusing, but very mild.
This, by the way, is the same Washington event where Bush previously charmed many (and horrified others) by pretending to have trouble finding Weapons of Mass Destruction (after we'd started to realize they weren't in Iraq), and wandered the room looking under tables. Really cute, huh? They should send videos of that to the families of soldiers killed.
The media's ignoring Colbert's effect at the White House Correspondents Dinner is a very clear example of what others have called the media's penchant for buying into the conservative/rightwing "narrative."
In this instance, the "narrative" is that President Bush, for all his missteps, has a darling sense of humor and is a real regular guy, able to poke delightful fun at himself and his penchant for mis-using and mispronouncing words.
Who cares if he lied to start a war? (Or chose to ignore all contrary opinion, which as far as war-starting goes, is pretty crummy.) Who cares if he declares he's above the law, and according to the Boston Globe yesterday there are something like 750 laws he's decided don't apply to him as "Commander-in-Chief"? "