Oh Snap
Originally I intended to discuss Peter Beinart's excellent piece in the Times Magazine on the virtues of old-school liberalism, but it'll have to wait, since I thought I'd take things easy for the day and put up these videos of Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner the other day. Funny stuff.
[update, 5 May] Okay, I guess YouTube had to take the video down. It's still available through C-SPAN, here. If the link gives you trouble, you can just open RealPlayer and ask it to open this address: rtsp://cspanrm.fplive.net/cspan/60days/wh042906_colbert.rm?mode=compact.
Part One:
Some highlights: Wow. Wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents' dinner. To actually sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man. I feel like I'm dreaming. Somebody pinch me. You know what? I'm a pretty sound sleeper -- that may not be enough. Somebody shoot me in the face. Is he really not here tonight? Dammit. The one guy who could have helped.
I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
Part Two:
A highlight: See who we've got here tonight. General Moseley, Air Force Chief of Staff. General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They still support Rumsfeld. Right, you guys aren't retired yet, right? Right, they still support Rumsfeld.
And a couple for DGL: John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir.
Mayor Nagin is here from New Orleans, the chocolate city! Yeah, give it up. Mayor Nagin, I'd like to welcome you to Washington, D.C., the chocolate city with a marshmallow center. And a graham cracker crust of corruption. It's a Mallomar, I guess is what I'm describing, a seasonal cookie.
Part Three:
. . . and with Bush right there. Beautiful.
Quotes courtesy of DailyKos (full transcript).
posted by Unknown @ 8:34 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
That stuff is very funny. I especially like the line about the glass being 1/3 full but don't drink the backwash.
I'm not so big on the Helen Thomas video he brought. I actually think this is a funnier Correspondents Dinner video.
Clinton doesn't have great comic timing, but he's an enthusiastic performer.
Some details on the days before Valerie Plame could attend the White House Correspondents Dinner.
From a David Shuster report on HARDBALL, "INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY VALERIE WILSON WAS PART OF AN OPERATION THREE YEARS AGO TRACKING THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL INTO IRAN. AND THE SOURCES ALLEGE THAT WHEN MRS. WILSON'S COVER WAS BLOWN, THE ADMINISTRATION'S ABILITY TO TRACK IRAN'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS WAS DAMAGED AS WELL."
Shuster then goes on to talk more about Rove's status in the leak investigation "EARLY IN THE CASE, ROVE ADMITTED TO INVESTIGATORS THAT HE OUTED VALERIE WILSON'S IDENTITY TO COLUMNIST ROBERT NOVAK -- NOVAK WAS THE FIRST JOURNALIST TO PUBLISH WILSON'S IDENTITY AND THE FIRST TO TALK ABOUT IT TO INVESTIGATORS.
AND LAST WEEK, KARL ROVE TESTIFIED AGAIN HE MAY HAVE SPOKEN ABOUT THE WILSON'S WITH TIME MAGAZINE'S MATT COOPER.
ROVE SAID HE DENIED THAT UNDER OATH FOR THE FIRST YEAR OF THE INVESTIGATION BECAUSE OF MEMORY PROBLEMS. A CASE OF BAD MEMORY IS SCOOTER LIBBY'S DEFENSE.
BUT IN REGARDS TO KARL ROVE, LAWYERS IN THE CASE SAY PROSECUTOR FITZGERALD IS STILL TROUBLED BY THE TIMING OF ROVE'S ROLLING DISCLOSURES: IT SEEMS THAT ROVE'S MEMORY PERKS UP WITH EVERY NEW INDICATION SOMEONE ELSE WILL EXPOSE HIM. WHEN ROVE FINALLY BEGAN TO UPDATE HIS TESTIMONY IN OCTOBER 2004... IT WAS JUST DAYS AFTER COOPER WAS FIRST HELD IN CONTEMPT FOR REFUSING TO DISCLOSE CONFIDENTIAL SOURCES. AND ROVE DID NOT GIVE COOPER A CLEAR WAIVER TO TESTIFY UNTIL AFTER COOPER'S APPEALS HAD BEEN EXHAUSTED 9 MONTHS LATER . . . THE WILSONS SAY THEY'VE SPOKEN TO PROSECUTOR PATRICK FITZGERALD TWICE SINCE THE CASE BEGAN... AND THE LAST TIME WAS SEVERAL MONTHS AGO. SO, THEY ARE WAITING, LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE, FOR SOME SORT OF ANNOUNCEMENT FROM FITZGERALD'S OFFICE ABOUT ROVE. KARL ROVE'S ATTORNEYS SAY THEY'VE BEEN TOLD BY FITZGERALD THAT NO DECISION WILL BE MADE FOR AT LEAST ANOTHER WEEK. CHRIS?"
Colbert didn't get a lot of laughs, and a lot of people are saying he flopped. He did flub at least one of the jokes and the Helen Thomas thing went on way too long.
He did a good joke on his show last night about the "worshipful silence" he received from the audience.
But the main reason no one laughed was that his political satire cut too close to the bone for a cheesy event like the Correspondents Dinner. (I have no idea why they invited him). Like Letterman with the Oscars, it's a credit to Colbert that this lame audience didn't appreciate him.
You have to love the fact that he didn't pull any punches even though he HAD to know his material wasn't going to go over well in the room.
James Wolcott's take:
"A note about the Stephen Colbert monologue at the Correspondents' Dinner that Elisabeth Bumiller seems to have slept through face-down in her entree. No question the stint played better on TV than it did in the room with C-SPAN cutting to gowned lovelies in the audience with glaceed expressions and tuxedo'd men making with the nervous eyes, but to say he "bombed" or "stunk up the place" (Jonah Goldberg's usual elegance) is wishful thinking on behalf of the wishful thinkers on the right, who have nothing but wishful thinking to prop them up during the day.
I know what bombing looks like. It looks like Don Imus when he did a standup monologue before President and Hillary Clinton, and went over so badly that sweat broke out in rivulets down his face and in parts unseen. What triggered the perspiration cascade was a sexual innuendo about how Clinton rooted for his favorite football team by yelling, "Go baby!" at the TV, which Imus remarked was probably not the first time he had voiced such a giddyup--an allusion to Clinton's poontang exploits, if you'll pardon the expression. Imus gave such a crass performance and caused such embarrassment to himself and everybody in the room that there were calls for apologies and he was in danger of being as contaminated as Whoopie Goldberg and Ted Danson briefly were after their unfortunate blackface episode.
See, that was Colbert's mistake. He didn't slip in any smutty lines. Had he done so, his standup would have been impossible to ignore as the Fox News hotheads would have gone into full outrage mode to defend the honor of Laura Bush and her virgin ears. Instead, Colbert was cool, methodical, and mercilessly ironic, not getting rattled when the audience quieted with discomfort (and resorting to self-deprecating "savers," as most comedians do), but closing in on the kill, as unsparing of the press as he was of the president. I mean no disrespect to Jon Stewart to say that in the same circumstances, he would have resorted to shtick; Colbert didn't. Apart from flubbing the water-half-empty joke about Bush's poll ratings, he was in full command of his tone, comic inflection, and line of attack. The we-are-not-amused smile Laura Bush gave him when he left the podium was a priceless tribute to the displeasure he incurred. To me, Colbert looked very relaxed after the Bushes left the room and he greeted audience members, signed autographs. And why wouldn't he be? He achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve, delivered the message he intended to deliver. Mission accomplished."
jameswolcott.com
That Wolcott piece seems to get it right. In fact, for my money the lack of laughs made the whole thing funnier--as DGL said, why would they invite him? Who would not have seen this coming?
I don't know if I'd go as far as the 'speaking truth to power' sentiment of some on the 'left'--after all, the shock wasn't in the content (Valerie W., Rumsfeld, low poll numbers--all of that is well-worn material by now), but rather in the situation . . . not to buy into Colbert's persona's talk, but it took some balls to stand right there next to the president and compare his administration not to the Titanic but instead to the Hindenburg.
I'm not sure why Wolcott believes it's "wishful thinking" on conservatives' part to say Colbert bombed, as though there's some objective measure of satire that he passed and Imus failed. The fact is, he didn't get big laughs, partly because he was slightly off (IMO) and partly because the audience wanted polite, apolitical humor.
I agree w/ YHD about context being more important than content. Imagine how uncomfortable it had to be for Bush, Rove, McLellan, etc. to sit there and listen to a pointed rehash (in the monologue and the video) of their most embarrassing and in some cases (literally) incriminating moments.
My favorite bit was the one about Bush's knack for photo ops--that HAD to smart!
I'm sure you've already seen it, but this morning Slate's Troy Patterson praised Colbert's performance. He acknowledged that the Helen Thomas video was too long, but mainly blamed the uptight audience:
"Who did they think they were getting? Mark Russell?"
I in turn am sure you saw this, but the Times ran an interesting meta-story today about the online buzz about the dinner.
An especially meta-moment, with a twist of--what was that, exactly, some sort of self-defense mechanism?--judgment:
Others chided the so-called mainstream media, including The New York Times, which ignored Mr. Colbert's remarks while writing about the opening act, a self-deprecating bit Mr. Bush did with a Bush impersonator.
Some, though, saw nothing more sinister in the silence of news organizations than a decision to ignore a routine that, to them, just was not funny.
Huh. And was the Bushx2 routine funny, then?
Okay, C-SPAN is a shifty mistress, but they've let google video (why not YouTube? search me) run the clip. Here's a nice reliable link (until someone changes their mind again): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879&q=colbert.
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