Thanks for the invitation, Anne. As an American citizen who is lucky enough to be living elsewhere, I would be pleased to join the festivities. I think the responses to your idea that I've read so far illustrate all too well why we could use a day dedicated to quiet questioning. Bastille Day means "cheese-eating surrender monkey"? Weapons? Worrying about what the right-wing greed 'n' guns brigade thinks of us? We're adults, let's remember. And to one respondent I can only say: Gale Norton, Condi, Gonzales and all the rest are definitely honorary armed white men! I will spend my day in one of London's glorious parks and sit and think and talk with my friends, my kids and my friends' kids, keeping in mind the spirit of what you've suggested. I will check out a book from my own personal library and read from a work that makes me proud of the American tradition of art-as-melting-pot: Lolita or Song of Solomon - or even I Married A Communist! Fruit? Quite possibly ...

Mr Cohen, the aim of Mr Colbert’s speech at the White House Press Association dinner wasn’t to inspire belly-laughs among you and your colleagues. Unlike the members of the press, he saw and seized the opportunity to speak about what is a perilous time for the United States – and, such is the US’s influence, for the rest of the world. He very rightly demonstrated how both the president and the press have failed US citizens all these years, and I understand that hurts; nobody wants to be told he’s doing his job inadequately. But the press has behaved very irresponsibly during one George Bush fiasco after another.

Who else is going ask John McCain about his recent chumminess with Bush (in the presence of both men, I might add) in light of the Bush/Rove South Carolina smear campaign of 2000? Not you. Who will stand in front of the press, the president and the nation and playfully bring up the Plame Name Game? A satirist, a fake journalist; not you. Who will declare to the president’s face that the illegal war he is waging is being discredited by the very people who have actual experience of war and who take its initiation and execution very seriously? You won’t, that’s for sure. Who will point out the shallowness and duplicity that is at the heart of George Bush and everything he stands for? Helen Thomas will but the rest of you won’t.

Luckily I left the US just after the first George Bush was elected; most don’t have or desire that option and they deserve better than the limp, apologist ‘reporting’ of the Post, the NY Times etc. The US press is laughed at internationally and Mr Colbert told you why. You in the press didn’t want to hear it and your blatant omission of reports about his speech and his video ‘audition’ showed that. (I remember a videotape of George Bush, in which he hilariously looked under tablecloths for weapons of mass destruction, was played at the WHPA dinner a few years ago and received a lot of coverage.) Your loud, forced chuckles over this year’s doppelganger skit, with its easier to handle isn’t-George-a-good-guy message, simply underscored the fact that the standard of White House reporting by news outlets of all types amounts to a dereliction of duty.

Mr Colbert was rude? Aggressive? That’s a bit rich considering the behaviour of the soon-to-be-indicted Karl Rove and his cronies. Those people don’t bother with satire or irony, instead favouring good old-fashioned fraud and intimidation; indeed, they know nothing about satire and irony, except that they can count on journalists to punish those who dare to use them. Did Mr Colbert call you a “major league asshole”? No; that’s what George and his friends do to reporters – but not to their faces.

Finally, and most deliciously: Mr Colbert is hurting Democrats by criticising Bush? That is side-splittingly hilarious in light of the fact that widespread voter fraud – which, along with some chums in the Supreme Court, put George Bush in the White House in the first place – went unchallenged by the ladies and gentlemen of the press, at the very moment when democracy needed you desperately.

You personally, and the press generally, need to grow up, take the criticism on the chin and be better at doing your job. Simple as that.

Interesting that he uses the phrase "Razz on the fiddle" about himself - that would have a very specific - and not at all positive - meaning in the UK.

Tiresome Andrew Sullivan, who once slapped my wrist in an email for daring to suggest that George Bush lacks the necessary intelligence to lead the USA, has - there is no other way to put it - flip-flopped. Does he have his uses? Does his story encapsulate some Amazing Grace-ish truth about being blind then being able to see? No, not really; no more than Bob Woodward's does. That Sullivan makes any kind of living whatsoever in the sphere of public opinion is depressing indeed. I did my bit for democracy, such as it is: I sent in my absentee ballot. Now can I be left in peace, free from the tyranny of mediocre minds such as Andy's? Cheers.

some sandwich (of the type that Tina Fey's character might eat or Tyra Banks might model through) got into my nose. Thanks, Heather. Lunch was really fun.