Monday, May 01, 2006

Stephen Colbert Snubs President to his Face; New Club Member

OK, consider me blown away.  It is one thing to bash the president from an ocean away, or even to snipe at him through the press when he’s close but you’ll never meet up with him. It’s a completely different thing to bash the president with him sitting less than 10 feet away, and for over 15 minutes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.  That’s what Stephen Colbert did on Saturday night, and I for one applaud him. {links below}

Bush was not amused by Colbert, and while he tried to smile, the smile was gone halfway through the Colbert section of the dinner. Other attendees admitted that Colbert had attacked harder than most correspondents do at a dinner that is meant to roast the commander in chief.  

Those seated near Bush told E&P's Joe Strupp, who was elsewhere in the room, that Bush had quickly turned from an amused guest to an obviously offended target as Colbert’s comments brought up his low approval ratings and problems in Iraq.  Several veterans of past dinners, who requested anonymity, said the presentation was more directed at attacking the president than in the past.


I thought Colbert was hilarious, but I guess that’s no surprise. The fact that the brunt of his jokes is arguably the most powerful man in the world and has little tolerance for opposition opinion didn’t stop him.  Colbert attacked multiple aspects of the Bush administration, beginning with a great piece on the President’s low approval rating.

Now, I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in "reality." And reality has a well-known liberal bias.

So, Mr. President, …pay no attention to the people who say the glass is half empty, because 32% means it's 2/3 empty. There's still some liquid in that glass is my point, but I wouldn't drink it. The last third is usually backwash.


I sort of like the thought of like to think of the remaining few Republicans who continue to support Bush despite his ineptitude as backwash.  It seems just about right. Another great swing by Colbert was at Bush’s close attention to appearances, as opposed to reality.  

I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.


Frankly, there are just too many good jabs to document them all here. He points to Bush’s perchance for revisionist history, influencing the media, and his inability to react to changing world events.  He points to retiring generals and their criticism of Donald Rumsfeld. He made fun of Iraq, Scott McClellan and Tony Snow (“Secret Service name Snow Job”). And he even made allusions to Bush being unintelligent, saying “we’re not brainiacs on the nerd patrol”

The video of the speech has been all over the place on the web, and here is a link to Part 1 and Part 2.  Pardon the horrible advertisements below the video, I got the links here. Also, I have not seen the text of the speech reprinted, so I typed it up.  Since it is so long, I put it on a separate post, linked to here.  It looks like it’s a week old, so it doesn’t slow down the blog.

If you’re watching, make sure you take not of Bush’s face during the whole speech.  He’s trying to smile or laugh, but time and again you see him fighting with the desire to get up and say something, it’s just way to obvious. Otherwise, read the text.  It’s fun stuff. And my complements to Stephen Colbert, I applaud you for having the guts to say this to Bush’s face, and I’ll start watching The Colbert Report!


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Posted by Scottage at 12:46 AM / | |