Stephen Colbert: Armed & truthy
You didn't hear much about it on Sunday, but Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert delivered a comedy routine Saturday night at the annual White House correspondents' dinner, the one at which the president traditionally shows up. (It's fairly long, so here are links to: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.) If you're not familiar with Colbert's schtick on his show, his character is a note-perfect parody of a pompous conservative talk-show host. (Think a younger, skinnier, less perverted Bill O'Reilly.)
Now, Colbert's riff took on not only the president, as is customary at these annual events, but also such people as John McCain and Antonin Scalia (and the latter apparently enjoyed the heck out of the fun being had at his expense; the video shows him laughing so hard he's about to fall out of his chair). But this was my favorite part of Colbert's routine:
Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking 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.
Man, the audience was most certainly not roaring with laughter.
Because the truth hurts.
More than a decade ago, I reviewed for this paper a book called "On Bended Knee: The Press and the Reagan Presidency," by Mark Hertsgaard. In it, Hertsgaard documented how extraordinarily deferential the news media became during President Reagan's tenure, not really waking up until the news about Iran-Contra broke in late 1986 (and it was a Lebanese newspaper, not one of ours, that broke it).
Colbert apparently thinks the national news media, for whatever reasons, have done the same thing during the Bush 43 administration. And its glittering denizens at the banquet clearly didn't appreciate being told so on live television, even if it was only C-SPAN.
They need to get over themselves. Even as some of them begin to awaken from their slumber, they need to realize that there are worse things than being made fun of on cable TV.
