News Media
Colbert roasts Bush in hellfire of his own making
By Charles M. Ashley
Online Journal Contributing Writer


May 3, 2006, 01:50

I have only seen a few news clips of the White House Correspondents Dinner and heard some comments. Although the corporate press is doing all it can to downplay the importance of this event, they cannot entirely conceal the truth.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank, on MSNBC�s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, said it "wasn't funny," and Chris Matthews of MSNBC�s Hardball said Stephen Colbert was "bad."

Typical corporate press disingenuousness -- unwilling to dig in and analyze for fear of uncomfortably scratching through the lies into truth. It "wasn't funny" and it was "bad" because the guests didn't laugh. They only cringed and squirmed in open-mouthed incredulity. Well, so what? Colbert was playing to a larger audience.

Both Milbank and Matthews apparently side with the upscale audience at the dinner.

For my part, I thought it was quite funny in an uncomfortably sardonic way. I especially liked the looks on Bush's stupid face as he had to sit there and take it, as it dawned on him that he and his fatal rot would be bathed in the light of comic truth.

�Reality,� Colbert jabbed, �has a well known liberal bias.�

I liked the incredulous looks on the audience's faces too. They weren't laughing, but that was only because their stupid little money-grubbing, power-mad, self-serving Bush-worshipping egos were invested. The right-wing high muckety-mucks know they are hopelessly entangled with Bush. And the correspondents all know they haven�t done their jobs as stalwarts of the so-called Fourth Estate. They also know that the truth will out. It is outing. They feel it all unraveling.

Colbert was roasting the guests at the same time he spitted Bush and turned him slowly in the hell-fire Bush himself ignited with his appallingly arrogant choices. It was a bonfire barbecue of conservative vanities.

Colbert on the press: "Let's review the rules. 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."

I think most people watching on television probably got a sardonic laugh out of watching Bush served a richly earned meal of venom. They were watching the good-old-boy tyrant force-fed just a little of the crow he deserves to eat. One hopes he will wear that crow -- albatross style -- around his neck for the remainder of his days on this planet. Unfortunately, he will probably just say, �Aw shucks� and let this brief dawning drain quickly into the forgiving darkness of arrogant dullness. Bush feigned politeness and politely partook, Titus Andronicus style, of the cadavers he himself has produced with his idiotic and tragic war. Except, unlike Tamora, he knew -- as well as the likes of Bush are able to know -- he was eating the rotting flesh of his own killing, and his face revealed he was utterly cloyed with this revolting food for thought.

Colbert: "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened Tuesday."

Bush is now polling in the low thirties for the very reasons Colbert lampooned the "prezdent." Colbert knows this. And you�ve got to hand it to Stephen Colbert for courage -- to stand up there in front of that hostile audience and dish it out the way he did. And the emperor Bush having to sit right up there on the dais, naked, for all to see, squirming, with only a dinner plate and white tablecloth to hide behind. It was priceless. It will go down in the annals of great comedy and will be forever linked to the disastrous presidency of George W. Bush.

�As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling. The president shook his hand and tapped his elbow, and left immediately� (Editor and Publisher, 4-29-06)