AlterNet: Stephen Colbert: New American Hero — The essayist here takes apart the media for its general reaction to the Colbert roasting of Bush.
from the Colbert speech:
…let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works: The president makes the decisions; he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people, the press, type those decisions down. Make, announce, check. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kickin’ around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know: fiction!
found by Gregg Zachary
It really is funny how no one in the mainstream media mentioned Colbert’s appearance there. All they showed was the Dubya impersonator.
Colbert was brilliant. Truth is the best satire.
I have watched Colbert for a long time. When i heard where he would be speaking and to whom i wondered if they had any idea what they were in for. He certainly didn’t dissapoint.
It was good to see Bush come out of his bubble for a night of reality. It was even better to see Colbert host his comig out party.
The president found out the hard way that truthiness hurts…
#1: It’s neither funny nor new. It’s normal. What else do you expect from such assholes? Even if they want, they can’t.
You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration? You know: fiction!
Gee… I wonder why no reporters reported this. Let me think…
#1 Trevor, I noticed the same thing — the silence was deafening. I think one reason was because the mainstream media was a “co-roastee” with the President. There was a lot of squirming in that room, both out of vicarious discomfort on behalf of the President and because the journalists were also being called on the carpet for their failure to inform.
For those of us who sometimes complain that Bush surrounds himself exclusively with “yes-persons,” we relished seeing him have to just sit there and take it. Now he knows the true meaning of torture.
Thats the problem with satire it has to have an element of truth to be funny.
Over the years the media has seldom reported on this event. It’s always been a clubby love fest with lame gags and no hard feelings allowed. I’m not sure how Colbert got invitied. AND by the way, 60 Minutes did a whole feature on this and interveiwed Colbert. Seems mainstream to me.
Over the years the media has seldom reported on this event. It’s always been a clubby love fest with lame gags and no hard feelings allowed.
Hmmm. I’d never really paid attention, but CBS News’ blurb agrees with your take:
—
The featured entertainer was Stephen Colbert, whose Comedy Central show “The Colbert Report” often lampoons the Washington establishment.
Yet it’s the Who’s Who of power and celebrity in the audience – invited by media organizations to their dinner tables – that draws much of the attention.
—-
Reminds me of when Chris Rock first hosted an event, and a lot of negative comments later. Anybody who knew his act knew why his act was popular – and it wasn’t because he was a shrinking violet. Did they seriously expect him [or Colbert] to “tone it down”?
#8 John, the “60 Minutes” piece was in the can already by the time Colbert roasted the Prez. I watched it, and I don’t recall any mention of what had transpired just the night before, so I reject your characterization that they “did a whole feature on this.” The feature was on Colbert himself and his Comedy Central show, unless of course they’ve done a completely new feature that I somehow missed.
In any case, the contrast between the amount of coverage lavished by the mainstream media on the “presidential twins” bit that Bush did with Steve Bridges and the very sparse mention in the MSM of the much longer keynote done by Colbert is quite striking.
I’m not totally sure why the Main Stream Media is being called on this. They do go after Bush and constantly. Just this week, USA Today published an article about NSA gathering phone call records. I am unaware of any news network that didn’t look into and report the story. (Fox Spews doesn’t count as news) When it came out that the NSA was conducting warrantless wiretaps, every news outlet jumped on the story. The latest figures give Bush an approval rating of 30% (or less), so something has to be happening to turn people’s attitudes from only 4 ½ yrs ago.
It would appear to me that the MSM isn’t following the wishes of a lot of radical people. Sure I don’t like Bush and would dearly love to see him hoisted upon his own petard a little more often. And I’m quite sure that some Bush admirer would like to see less criticism. On the whole, however, I do think the news reporting is fairly balanced in the MSM.
#11 Señor Fusion, I agree that the MSM giant has largely been nudged from its gentle sleeping state, but I remember when the big three plus cable networks were looking very Fox-ish. Leading up to and into this war, the administration had amazingly disciplined control of its internal players. Perhaps they were chosen more for their loyalty than for their competence. As Colbert pointed out, daily press briefings were THE major source of news. The administration was very good at controlling the information flow, but the situation has improved dramatically, to the point where we actually find out things they don’t want us to know!
As one who thinks the MSM basically sucks, I have to disagree with you Gary……the MSM hasn’t laid off Bush since day 1 of his Presidency. The only break was for a short period after 9/11 and up to the Irag war. At that time the MSM was for the war, and only when it didn’t go the way they hoped did they change back to their normal anything that makes Bush look bad attitude. But, thats what the media is supposed to do.
As to Colbert, maybe no one thought he was funny.
Gary, I understand but don’t totally agree with your point. At the beginning of the Iraq War we were told things and had no reason not to believe. We didn’t go into Iraq for regime change, enrich Haliburton, or to make Chalaby’s life nicer. We went into Iraq because they had weapons of mass destruction that they were going to use them against us and Israel. The Pentagon and CIA had the undeniable evidence. This was a national war against those that would hurt us.
Slowly as more information, such as Seymor Hirch’s articles, interviews with Scott Ritter, and Wilson’s op-ed piece, came about, the truth revealed itself. Even Watergate didn’t all come out overnight, it took months of digging by people worried about the truth. Even today, there are Americans stating “better there then here” or claiming the Democrats “flip flopped” because they believed Bush’s lies as a justification for the war.
The easiest evidence of this is following Bush’s approval ratings. He went from 89% in September 2001 to 29% in the last published poll. Again, this didn’t happen overnight, but it has been a slow, steady decline as people read the news. Because people believed so strongly in 2001 it has taken so long to come back to where they now understand they were lied to.
What I do think it true is that news budgets have been drastically reduced in most agencies as advertising dollars are spread around so much more. This would explain the lack or degree of investigative reporting we saw during Watergate.
A quick thought on the internal discipline. It might have more to do with hiring loyal players then competent people.
The only people who found this couragoues, or the media “silent” are people who were already predisposed to hate anything right of center.
Both notions are idiotic. Simple google news searches show literally thousands of articles on Colbert in the days after the event, and only a few dozen before.
This meme is certainly gathering steam, that the press was intentionally silent. Too bad it’s a bold-faced lie that is easily disproved by anyone willing to do the search themselves.
As for Colbert’s courage? Call me when he stands up to radical Muslim terrorists who would KILL him for using that kind of humor against them. THAT is courage. All he did was run his mouth in a country where insulting the President doesn’t carry any penalties whatsoever. He told the President of the United States off right to his face and went right back to work doing his show.
It takes courage to speak up when you know a price will be paid. It’s not remotely courageous to speak badly about Bush or any politician in America.
#13 Joshua, I agree they’ve hounded Bush on some things from the start, but I was referring, as did Colbert, to the MSM failure to fully investigate our rationale for war and how well it actually stacked up to the facts. In their defense, the media were up against a very disciplined, relatively new Administration that had enormous public support after 9/11, which they were quick to exploit.
There was a huge chunk of public out there that wanted to buy the Administration’s bill of goods; hook, line and sinker. The media simply told us what we wanted desperately to hear — that our leaders understood the problem and had a plan to fix it and keep us safe. This crew was going to succeed where Bush-41 hadn’t dared to tread (one reason being the probable outbreak of civil war without Hussein).
As for Colbert, if I were a journalist, I’m not sure I’d have found his keynote funny, either. Unfortunately for him, he was playing to a room chock FULL of journalists. As a bystander, though, I thought there were some great moments. Bush had to sit through one joke that played on how his top adviser Karl Rove had intentionally deceived the press. Apparently, deceiving the press is something they only laugh about in private. Funny stuff for me, though.
Am I the only one who doesn’t find Colbert that funny?
There were some good lines in his speach, but his delivery was awful. He worked so well as part of the Daily Show, but he wears so thin after a while…
However its terrible that no-one reported it, reguardless how funny the segment was.
#14 Mr. Fusion, you’re right, and I really shouldn’t suggest that the media was totally asleep. There were multiple reasons for their shortcomings. I’ll even toss out another possible hindrance to consider — at that time, this was still a fairly new Administration, and there had been a change from Democrat to Republican as well. Inside information sources (and trust) take time to develop, and without good sources, the press had to rely more heavily on daily briefings straight from the spinners themselves (Ari Fleischer was a master compared to McClellan).
malren, you have to admit though that you can’t blame Colbert for all these claims that he had so much courage. He’s not the one going around saying out courageous he was….he’ll admit he was just doing his “character” as he does every night on his show.
Also, people saying the press was silent isn’t a “bold face lie”. A little harsh there don’t you think? Perhaps they’re more just misinformed, or they themselves didn’t see any press about it? Let’s see…an example of a bold-face lie would be “Iraq has WMDs”. There, you see the difference?
Gregory, YOU are not the only one who does not think Colbert is that funny. You either buy into what he’s doing — the fake personna modelled after Bill O’Reilly — or you don’t. It’s somewhat conceptual and I can imagine a lot of people not finding it funny. A lot of people do not think much of Woody Allen either. Some characters do not have universal appeal. That said, I can assure you that the fact Colbert can maintain that character so well for so long is awesome in itself.
Site admin, very good point about Colbert being an acquired taste. And while I too am not that taken with his humor, he deserves credit for maintaining his persona so well and so spontaneously. So often one can tell he just wants to burst out laughing at his own bombastic, pompous self.
#15…
Are you saying that because negative punditry here is relatively safe from persecution by those it is aimed at, it should not be done?
Of course it is brave to speak one’s mind in a culture where the power structure goes after those who dare to criticize it, when those who are running things are obviously corrupt and ham-handed. How could it not be?
But coming out and saying things about the ‘strongmen’ and their followers who are in power is something that must be done wherever one comes from. If the reaction by the power structure is to try to kill those who speak out, those strongmen will lose in the end. They are already losing… it’s been going on for a long time… gradually for sure, but definitely downhill.
To me, George W Bush is a figure who got to where he is by a powerful conservative anti-intellectual element of my culture. (Picture him as a ventriloquist’s puppet in the lap of a grinning military man). So, some of us throw tomatoes at him for it, because we think he deserves it. To say, “Hey, we shouldn’t do this because we’re allowed to” is sort of ludicrous, don’t you think?
It looks to me as though there really aren’t any more well-backgrounded “father figure” presidents in our future (such as Lincoln, Roosevelt et al were said to have been). Of course the media in its free-wheeling close up lens has exposed an awful lot of dirty laundry and embarrassment to discourage people who might do a better job, but don’t want to go through all that stupid media jive. So, fools rush in where wise men fear to go. It’s just too bad.
But we’re on our own, really, and may have to just figure it all out for ourselves.
(which, come to think of it, is probably what the founders of the USA actually intended).
#23: You are either crazy, English is not your first language or you are tryong to start an argument. I said nothing of the sort. I never even IMPLIED what you said.
I said, simply, that what he did was not courageous because there is no consequence. He will not be arrested, detained, beaten or beheaded.
Never did I say he shouldn’t do it. I said he shouldn’t be lauded as courageous for doing it. It’s not courageous unless there are consequences.
Speaking against radical mullahs in a country where it can cost you your life…that’s courage. Telling jokes at the expense of the President in the United States of America? That’s an every-day occurance.
You created a straw man in your post and then argued against it. Try sticking to what *I* actually said next time.
#24: Yes, I probably did jump the gun on that one a bit. It wasn’t very on the mark… sorry. Maybe it’s sort of that I keep hearing conservative thinking people the using the strife in other cultures as examples of how unpatriotic it is to abuse the ‘gift’ of free speech by speaking up about troubling things (which they seem to prefer to ignore).
An awful lot of people in those other cultures seem to be so inured to violence as a way of solving their problems. It’s hard to even feel sorry for them sometimes.
But then again… Sure it’s true Colbert probably won’t get his head chopped off… in fact it’s possible that he’ll even make some money on it. Courage? It seems to me that it does indeed involve some of that, though, to look the mass media lens in the eye and point out with humor obvious truths that many others fear will cost them their jobs, reputations etc. (I especially liked the part about Helen Thomas pressing him for what the real reason was for invading Iraq was). So, maybe it’s just a matter of degree rather than absolutes.
I think standup comics are some of the bravest people on Earth, who succeed or fail in a most immediate and intimate way.
The other stuff in my post wasn’t really meant to be an argument, just me rambling on in my “liberal” way… probably should’ve indicated that.
But then, it’s fun to start arguments sometimes, even if one gets bogged down now and then. Folks who exaggerate and toss around words like “idiotic” and “crazy” tend to look like easy marks, too.
(idiot n. An adult person with the mental age of 3 or 4 years old)