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Yes, Colbert is brilliant and often hilarious, but since he hasn't completely divorced himself from the Zeitgeist he mocks (check the nod to Brooks Brothers at the close of his show) he walks a fine line, which on Saturday he stumbled across a few times. You can take the man out of Dartmouth but you can't take Dartmouth out of the man.
Part Dean Martin Roast, part Don Rickles in Vegas circa '88, and part Mark Twain, Colbear (his bear satire is not unrelated to Rush Limbaugh's attack on Environmental Wackos) plays it close to the vest so that it's difficult for the uninitiated to discern who the real target of the joke is. In this regard, he is more similar to the timid Washington Press than his zingers would seem to indicate. Oh, I know, you're going to say, "But that's what makes him brilliant." Really? Hedging his comedic bet makes him safe, not sorry, amusing not satiric. At heart a true libertarian, he genuinely appreciates the Bushonian certainty, but certainly not the lack of intelligence. Indeed, if Bush had the same devilish capacity to juggle his truth with his humor that Colbert has, the comedian wouldn't have as many bones to pick with the president.
His main target is the Bushonian lack of mental dexterity, which Newt Gingrich, and for that matter, Reagan had in abundance. The funniest attack on his show, signifying his main area of concentration, has been the truthiness bit. Which is a tad ironic. The truth about Colbert is that he's given the Administration an overall pass on the war unlike Stewart whose Mess-O-Patamia skits have been satiric gold. And when he had a chance to skewer Kristol - the neocon guru - on his show, he simply outshouted the man, which made him appear banal and stiff, but not conceptually bankrupt.
If Colbear has a genius, and it'd be hard to prove in court that it's very deep, it's the ability to appear banal and stiff - not like Pee Wee Herman but in true Ivy League fashion - while also being able to riff as fast as Charlie Bird ever did. Yep, he's fast, but not often profound. Look close: it's more flash than substance, and in this way he's more like his times than he is against them. The telling act on the show is the egoistic stroll over to the guest while psyching up the audience more effectively than blinking red applause signs. By contrast, Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker were able to generate the fire inside without all the faux marching band exuberance.
He's subtle, sophisticated, but, unfortunately, brash, loud and pompous, which, he'd be the first one to tell you, he's given a license for all this simply because he uses it to mock people just like him.
