Ok, I'll put it simply, although Mr. Colbert had a few moments of true satiric humor, ie; the bit about talking slowly and loudly into your table number, he just wasn't as funny as he could have been.

Mr. Colbert's use of sarcasm is not necessarily satire. The line is fuzzy at times, but his sophomoric humor often resorts to insults instead of irony. What's the difference between the Titanic sinking or the Hindenberg crashing in flames...is it a bigger insult?

It was funny to think about democracy being stamped out in plastic for 3 cents, but the remark to China's ambassador about happy meals was unnecessary and in bad taste. It seems to me that being subtle and sublime has given way to the idea that being ballsy is the only ingredient necessary to being considered funny.

The worst bit was the video in which he was applying for the job as press secretary. If anyone watched Bill Maher's video application for the same position this weekend, it was far shorter and much funnier. Mr. Colbert, you can make a point without beating it to death. Please, give your audience credit for having more intelligence than the President.

And when it comes to grilling the press, calling them a bunch of clowns that you can handle just isn't funny. Maybe that is why the press corp sat silently and didn't make a big deal in reporting Mr. Colbert's "moment". Keith Oberman did report it, engaged another humorist in reviewing it, and they concluded (more than likely, rightly so) that it just wasn't as funny as it could have been.

And that's the word.

Brother Bob (is that an Arrogant Worms reference, btw? Nice one, if so...) --

I'm sure you've had enough of being attacked for your pov here, so don't worry, that's not what I'm doing. You clearly put thought into it, and you're entitled to your opinion. That said, however, I do think you may be confusing the character with the comedian, to a certain extent. "Stephen Colbert," the character, hosts the Colbert Report, and it's the character who shows the intense egotism you mentioned (i.e., the running over to the guest thing). The egotism itself is part of the parody of right-wing talking (or more often, yelling) heads like Bill O'Reilly (who is perhaps the one most directly satirized by the "Colbert" persona), and as with all the other aspects is something of a reductio ad absurdum. If you watch or read him in the times he is _not_ in character, you'll see none of that egotism -- or at least, certainly no more than any average public figure. ;)

I would disagree that Colbert (the comedian) has given Bush "an overall pass on the war;" the character, of course, doesn't think there's a 'pass' to give. As he asks frequently of guests with regard to the Iraq debacle, "great war... or the _greatest_ war?" John Stewart (whom I also greatly admire) has the relative luxury of addressing topics from a 'moderate-left' sort of realm, by which I mean that anywhere in that range fits the 'character' of 'John Stewart, host of The Daily Show'. He 'plays' the role of objective (or at least objective-ISH) newsman. Colbert, by contrast, plays the role of the quintessential "wingnut in wingtips," talking-point-spouting, anti-intellectual, aggressive, egotistical right-wing apologist. If he lets the character stray leftward, the satire loses its bite and the character loses cohesion; he has to take every aspect of those the character is modeled on and exaggerate it to the point at which the absurdity of it all is evident but (when all goes well) not flat-out telegraphed.

Subtle and sophisticated belong to the comedian; brash, loud, and pompous to the character. In my opinion, the fact that "it's difficult for the uninitiated to discern who the real target of the joke is" is indeed, as you expected others to retort, part of "what makes him brilliant." It's that very subtlety that shows how ridiculous the targets are; reaching absurdity without straying far from reality illustrates just how ridiculous that reality already is.

I've watched the Press Dinner performance twice, so far, and plan to at least once more. It was a little painful the first time, with the relative silence of the audience, and I definitely didn't find all of it to be "laugh out loud" funny -- but it was brave, brutal, ballsy, and brilliant. I think your crack about reciting lines hacked together by 60 writers is more than a bit unfair, both because to my knowledge he did at least most of his writing for it (he is, after all, a comedian and comedy writer, and has been doing that for years) and because he did quite a lot more than 'recite' it.

I don't know if this performance will go down in history to be remembered years, even decades later -- but I hope it will. This administration has done everything in its power to shield itself from dissidence, and the media have been asleep at the switch; Stephen -- the man, not the character -- had the opportunity to make them listen to what so many of us wanted to say, and the guts to do it. Even if the only difference it makes in the long run is to make a good portion of the 68% majority of us out here feel a little better that someone with a real soapbox to stand on stood up, that's plenty to make it praiseworthy to me.

Eileen said: "What's the difference between the Titanic sinking or the Hindenberg crashing in flames...is it a bigger insult?"

The point is that there =isn't= much difference. The set-up line that "This administration isn't sinking, it's soaring!" is vital; protest as one may that things are rosy ('soaring') the truth is still that the disaster is imminent, if not already in progress!

Defending the indefensible results in an unconvincing defense. And unfortunately, the US government has been spending a lot of time being indefensible. Like the man said: Reality has a well-known liberal bias.