Colbert Rips the President a New One

Ladies and Gentlemen, the voting is closed, pencils down, the fat lady she has sung -- pick your metaphor, but the contest for Biggest Cajones in the US has officially gone to Stephen Colbert. Via Americablog from the White House correspondents dinner:

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Noting those low ratings, Colbert advised, "The glass isn't half empty - it's 68% empty. There's still some fluid in there, but I wouldn't drink it."

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “They are re-arranging the deck chairs--on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

He noted former Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the crowd, as well as " Valerie Plame." Then, pretending to be worried that he had named her, he corrected himself, as Bush aides might do, "Uh, I mean... Joseph Wilson's wife." He asserted that it might be okay, as prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was probably not there.

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurriance disasters, and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face.
Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

Apparently, the President was not amused. As noted --

As he walked from the podium the president and First Lady gave Colbert quick nods, unsmiling, and left. E&P's Joe Strupp, in the crowd, observed that quite a few felt the material was, perhaps, uncomfortably biting.

Wasn't it last year at the White House Correspondent's dinner where the President did a HI-LARIOUS bit with some fake home movies showing him looking for those darned elusive WMD's? And they weren't there! It was a laff riot! I was laughing all the way to the 2300 odd military funerals!! Giggling as I donted money to help pay for over 10,000 wounded Americans!! Stop me before I piss myself with glee. But Colbert's bit, that was OUT OF LINE, mister!!

"Uncomfortably biting"? Awwww. Awwwwwwwwwwwww. That's supposed to be YOUR job, "real journalists", making the government -- any government, Republican or Democrat -- feel uncomfortable. Afflict the comfotable and comfort the afflicted. But no, God help a fake journalist actually use satire to point out a bunch of inconvenient truths you don't bother with because either you're too afraid of losing your invites to little prawn&wine parties with the swells, or it might just be too much real work, or, well ... pick your excuse for a non-functioning cowardly domestic media.

Enjoy the stay at Gitmo, Stephen. I'll raise money for your legal defense fund. Assuming they even let you have a trial. Which, although I joke, is entirely legal under the current rules of this Administration.

The President was upset? Good. I hope the President was sleepless with rage. At least then he'd know how most of us have been spending every night for the last three years.

Annnnnd We're Back.

Sorry for the downtime, folks, I was out East on family affairs. I rarely get out there anymore, and so I had forgotten two crucial things:

1.) Boston drivers always obey the rule that "Safe following distance" is two car lengths. However, Boston drivers count, within that distance, your car and their car. Jesus, it's like four days of driving with a tow-line.

2.) In many places, drivers have bumper stickers proclaiming how much they love their local sports team. Massachusetts is one of the fiew locales where they gleefully exhibit bumper stickers declaring their deep and abiding hatred of the team from some other city entirely. It is, of course, a public service to remind people that said team (Yankees) are indeed inferior (they suck). To wit: YANKEES SUCK.

Now that I know we're actually going to shoot the thing, after my jet lag fades I'll continue the inside scoop on writing the freelance script. Also, I got an e-mail asking, in a somewhat annoyed tone to be truthful, "what the hell are you reading?" I will use this to begin foisting some lists of books I'm reading onto you, in the spirit of that Friday Top Ten IPod thing most bloggers do. But without the risk of embarrassing emo revelations.

Oh, and Grey Gardens really crosses the line into operetta. It's pretty audacious of a crappy screenwriter to hack into Doug Wright (and I thought I Am My Own Wife was pretty damn stunning), but only Christine Ebersol's virtuousity in playing Little Edie in the second act in any way justifies that looooooong first act. That said, she's amazing, and the set design is a thing of beauty. But be prepared to glance at the watch a few times on the way to the intermission.

If you haven't seen the Grey Gardens film, there's a new Criterion DVD release, so you have no excuses now. There's a rather odd dichotomy in attitudes toward the film between straight women and gay men, but I can smell one of my long, split-topic posts coming on, so I'll refrain and adress it another time.