A blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush by Comedy Central’s faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close. […] Several veterans of past dinners, who requested anonymity, said the presentation was more directed at attacking the president than in the past. Several said previous hosts, like Jay Leno, equally slammed both the White House and the press corps. (more)
You can find the video here. Also at Youtube. Best Quality Here.
Finally some modern humor at these lame events.
You can be sure they were doing high-fives at Comedy Central. They’ll all need the extra money from better ratings to shore up the upcoming IRS audit results.
I thought the video at the end was hilarious.
I was laughing a lot harder than the audience was. Then again, I wasn’t one of his targets.
I honestly expected Colbert’s tv show to get old fast. But he’s managed to really surprise me.
It was essentially made for the television audience, not the immediate audience.
The good news about Bush being steamed is that he must have understood it — advisors didn’t have to explain it to him later. The bad news is that many of us are going to miss Stephen. He was brilliant. And thanks for the HQ link. Now I don’t regret not recording it myself.
Oh that made my day. That was awesome!
When the prsesident and the institution that he stands for has managed to lose all credibily as our current President (and all those that serve him or support him have lost), it becomes increasingly easy to tell biting truths.
Colbert is the modern equivalent if the child screaming “Look, the Emperor has no clothes!”.
Expect more of this type of strong critique, much more, since the door is now open, the threshold has been crossed. And as with the “Emperor has no clothes” parable, eyes are being opened, courage is returning, and minds are being awakened.
I saw this on C-Span last night live. I couldn’t believe what was transpiring. It was a good whipping done under the guise of comedy. George Bush was not amused. Stephen Colbert has steel balls. He basically beat up the president in front of the entire Media. Mr. Colbert showed fearlessness in a crowd of cowards. I still can’t believe he said what he said. Bush left the stage in disgrace and embarrasment as he should for the disgraceful conduct of a President unbecoming.
Stephen Colbert has the biggest balls in America, and maybe the world.
First it was ‘you’re destroying the country’, then ‘60% of what you say is crap’, now this. You are so easily amused. No wonder they say liberals can’t do comedy and conservatives can’t do drama.
Didn ‘t Don Imus do this to Clinton, and bomb just as badly? Just saw the video for Colbert, not very funny. He sounded a lot like Margaret Cho.
I was disapointed, I thought he bombed.
A couple good lines, but I didn’t really think it was all that funny, or brave(why would you call it brave?) I don’t like Leno, but I’ve actually heard far worse and much more funny from him about Bush.
But then I guess it’s an improvement from finding punching someone out as humor.
I saw Bush as he left, he wasn’t embarrassed or defeated. Most likely he was sad at the lame attempt to belittle him. If you want to embarrass or make someone look bad, you do it with real humor, not some lamely disquised go for the jugular attack, as this was. The best comedians know this, constant humor can undermine a person far better than direct assult no matter how it’s packaged.
Bush makes himself a target to easily. After awhile the lefty’s start looking like bully’s and people stop listening to their message. They may be unhappy with Bush over the war, but most people in this country don’t like seeing their President belittled, contrary to what the Liberals think. I think Bush knows this well.
I like the Steve Martin approach. Making other people look dumb is cheap. Making yourself look dumb is priceless. Having big corporations make you look dumb could mean that you are the President of the United States, selling software or are just not trying hard enough to screw something up. This is the most expensive way to go broke. Making a million dollars is fairly easy. You don’t need to be that smart. Losing it is complex and difficult. Laughter is the best medicine for social disease and we have a number of them in 2006.
Here’s proof, “people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.”
http://www.umm.edu/features/laughter.htm
No laughs to report from Iraq and little in the way of proof of anything. That’s the way it works with deceptions and the people who advance in that direction. I can’t laugh at President Bush. I can’t see the point of searching for humor in the darkness. Making the President look dumb should be left to Fox News. That was funny. Laugh.
Contempt from a liberal toward the administration…so what’s new?
The fulcrum for going to war was bad intelligence. Not to mention Sadam wanted everyone to believe he actually had WMD’s.
Q: Under which administration was the intelligence department practically dismantled?
“I can’t laugh at President Bush. I can’t see the point of searching for humor in the darkness. ”
How sad for you. What truly awful way to live.
Your choice, though. You’re the one making yourself miserable.
I laughed at a good bit of it; but for the most part, it wasn’t very funny. Plenty of attacks on everything. Some were great, others were just in poor taste.
I keep hearing how steamed Bush was, but its a lie. Of course the general public would love to hear that Bush threw a hissy-fit, but that wasn’t the case. Whether his appearance changed one in private or not is another thing, but in public he did not look upset.
I found the mock debate between Bush and comedian Steve Bridges impersonating Bush funnier.
Well, I have to revise my opinion. I responded initially after viewing a low quality, shorter version, while still downloading the HQ version. Turns out the HQ version had a significantly longer running time with more material at the beginning. I agree with those who think he piled on too much. I still think it was good stuff, but it was paced too slowly and ran too long. I’ll give the President a few sympathy points on this one, as long as they don’t show up in the polls 😉 Let him get polling points the old fashioned way… let him earn them.
The one time I saw his show, I thought he was funny. Apparently his jokes are funnier in the context of his show with longtime viewers better able to understand things. So this bombed more like Letterman hosting the Oscars or Conan at the Emmys.
I dunno. I only laughed a little more than the audience. I love Colbert’s show, but this was a little too blunt to be laugh-out-loud funny. Not witty or obvious enough.
Like the whole bit about the Generals still supporting Rumsfeld, “oh, wait, you’re not retired yet? Right, so you still support him.” I thought that was awesome, but I didn’t really laugh. Critiquing active duty general’s for not standing up to their civilian leadership is a complex issue. Even for smart people, if they can’t get to the joke in 3 seconds, you’re not gonna get laughs.
But the glaciers and global warming joke killed. Ce la vie.
I think it’s funny that the only people that commented about how not funny it was were also for the Bush administration. Why can’t people just laugh? Forget Iraq, elections, and which side everyone is on for just a few minute and friggin laugh! If you honestly did not find those videos partly funny then something is seriously wrong with you.
Colbert had a good set — the audience was a dud, though. He didn’t lose them, they were listening and squirming. This is not an audience that is bored, or not “getting it”. And, Bush did react with a very definate body language when he shook Colbert’s hand…it was dismissive, and downcast. He did not look up, and his shoulders sagged. That’s where people are getting the inference that he was upset.
Colbert didn’t “bomb”, he was just playing to another audience….I agree with numlock! I thought it was about time someone spoke up and made fun of the stupidity that’s been going on.
It’s not a left or right thing……
“Reality has a well known liberal bias”.
It’s funny ’cause it’s true!
Wow..am I impressed by these comments or what? Talk about a balanced audience. 50-percent love 50-percent hate 50-percent gold.
I agree with Meetsy. In fact Colbert was slamming the prexy too hard for this group of party-goers who were just plain shocked and hoped to god their invites to these things would not be cancelled if someone saw them smiling. Colbert will not be invited back but I doubt he cares. He was definitely NOT playing to THIS audience and plowed through it. It was a bomb by situational standards, but ballsy and brilliant.
Oh, and you can be sure his Monday numbers for his own show will be through the roof!
John the hi res download appears to have a problem.
The funny thing is…these are real problems…yes jokes help point out the problems but instead of poking fun at them for the 1000th time…lets come up with some solutions. Constructive criticsim is the name of the game.
Actually, I personally think the people here that didn’t “get it” and found it not funny are the ones gauging it from how many laughs it got.
In the culture of laugh-tracks and “filmed in front of a live audience”, we don’t know how to laugh at things that are funny without being prompted to. Since you didn’t hear much laughter in the audience, many are assuming that he bombed and that he wasn’t funny….because if you’re not hearing the laughs, then it must not be funny, right?
Also, this is a character Colbert plays….this isn’t really Colbert himself. Watch his show some time, it’s a take off on all the right-wing talk shows like the O’Reilly Factor.
#23…seth….I’m not for this administration and neither are a few of the others who panned the act.
I just finished going through my usual early morning British news….BBC and The Times of London…..neither even mentioned Colbert…zip…zro, nada. But they did mention Palme being there and the bit Bush did with the double…..they all were very surprised at how funny it was and how much the audience laughed. Both of these sources are not Bush fans.
This was not by any means a pro Bush audience, it was made up of the people who rip him a new one every day in the NYT and the Wash Post and other liberal news outlests. I think they just thought Colbert was out of line and over the top.
Certainly one shouldn’t be surprised that the resident right-wingers didn’t find this funny, but I’m a little disappointed that they haven’t yet question Colbert’s patriotism! Oh well, we’ll have to leave that to the professionals I guess (from Lucianne.com):
“Steve Colbert was utterly disgusting. Even the libs didn’t laugh most of the time. He was rude, snarky and unpatriotic toward the President and First Lady.
Watching Stephen Colbert was an exercise in agony. It went on and on and on forever, generating few laughs with everyone checking their watches. Whoever said he was funny, besides Don Imus, should have watched Colbert’s non-performance tonight. It’s like he didn’t have a clue that he had bombed! Bush and his look-alike stole the show.
Bush is a master of self-deprecating humor which makes him endear himself more to the American people. Gosh, I love this guy and am so proud of him.”
Bush sure does endear himself to the American people, alright. To the tune of a 68% disapproval rating.
As Colbert said, “Reality has such a liberal bias.”
Colbert showed the ugly side of Bush with comedic brilliance. Those who can’t see that humor must be part of the 32% who still “love” Bush. The correspondents at the dinner make money “covering” Bush’s utter failures, so of course they didn’t laugh. This is more evidence that an imperial presidency is being constructed. It won’t stand. America is better than the Bush administration.