Carpe Comedy. JFK was murdered on my 19th birthday. It's taken a lot of Vitamin I (Vitamin Irony) to get me through the following decades with dogged optimism intact. I have felt my fingers slipping off the edge of the Cliff of Despair, however, these last five years.

Watching The Press Dinner on 4/29, I felt Ultimate Hope resurge -- a cosmicomic pole shift as if the planet's very magnetic field had flipped. In insufficient tribute, I renamed the constellation Orion, Colbertion -- and Mt. Everest, Mt. Colbert.

I was so unreasonably happy to see Colbert dare the mesquite-fuelled car, standing on things (aircraft carriers, rubble, recently flooded city squares), and the stop-lossed, pundit-show-hardened generals on banks of computers sending young men into battle that I all but spontaneously combusted into fireworks of glee in my living room.

His mad comic courage ignited my heart again. I tug my forelock five times a day while somersaulting.

Well, those poor, overdressed, navel-peering, lazy, and yes, overpaid Beltway boobs found themselves as part of the cast of a very bizarre SNL flashback.

They deserve all that and more. In all the comments, I'm surprised that anyone has not brought up H.L. Mencken, who had the same sting though maybe with a loftier delivery (he was a newspaperman, after all).

He said, "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."

I guess that makes these guys advocates of Media Democracy.

Mark Twain wouldn't have put up with this sort of self-inflation either. Colbert's in a great American tradition.

The only thing that might have been more appropriate would have been to equip all the chairs with whoopee cushions -- and John Waters' smell-o-vision.

Nawww, the audience was clueless. Most of them probably don't even remember SNL when it was good.

I love this guy. And I don't even have cable or watch TV.

Twas ever thus. As George S. Kauman said: "Satire is what closes in Philadelphia on Saturday night." Also, apparently, in Washington DC. The real reason for the chilly response to Colbert from the Press Corps is not that they're somehow wanting for a sense of humor, but that Americans in general don't do well with self-criticism. Given the role of money as an American sacrament, it must be that it's bad for business.

Shortly after I left my job as head writer for "Laugh-In", the producer received a visit from an NBC pooh-bah in the wake of the assault of barbs we had levelled at that model of satirical possibilities, President Richard Nixon> The NBC vice president had but two things to say:

"First of all," said he, "I am not even here, get it?"

"I get it," said the producer.

"Second of all," he went on, "there will be NO MORE political humor on this show, of any kind whatsoever."

And there wasn't.

It will be interesting to see what happens to Stephen Colbert's career now. That he is now on one of those "lists" so beloved of Republicans there can be no doubt. "Laugh-in" ended its run shortly after the event I describe above.

I read the transcript of Stephen Colbert's performance at the D.C.

press corps gig and found it to be incredibly funny!

Stephen Colbert has more "balls" than the cowardly press corps

who attended the performance.

Bush is a "Bully" and has no problem dishing it out but apparently

can't take it.

What more need I say?

What can I say more than what already has been said before me?

Stephen we love you man, I'll be sad to see you go when they railroad you off your new show. You'll definately be able to find work on an obscure AM radio talk show however. Thats where they like to keep comedic-jouralistic-actor types like you that talk badly against the powers that be.

I hope I'm wrong and this will turn into a paradigm shift in how the media covers the illegal activities (9/11 complicity, illegal NSA wiretapping, treasonous outing of clandestine CIA agents, illegal preemptive war with Iraq, signing bills into law without congressional approval etc....) of our current administration, but from what I'm hearing out there so far in response to Mr. Colbert's impromptu roast of the President and the Main Stream Media talking heads is that this is not going to be the case.

All I can say is that if Stephen Colbert ends up having an unfortunate car accident or an tragic accidental throat slashing, we know who made the order Mr. President.

Some of you may think I'm off base on this but when you piss off a serial killer like Mr. President, people end up missing, ask John O'neill former FBI agent, he just had a plane ran into his office the first day on the job, after pissing off the administration.

Just listen to the reaction to the crowd... THERE WAS NONE! They didn't know weather to snarl, smile, laugh, cry, run, or wet their pants! They were scared shitle$$!

Mark My Words!

When the shit hits the fan, all of you talking heads out there covering up the dirty deeds of the current administration that includes you as well Salon we know who you are, and there is a growing list, you as well as your superiors will be held to the same accountability as the evil that you falsly promulgate.

The truth movement is growing at a rapid rate and sooner or later your going to have to kill us all or face the dark days that you have coming to you!

That is of course if you don't change your pathetically cowardly ways.

God Bless,

SEAN

I have watched Colbert's performance over and over and I cannot, for the life of me, think of a more courageous way to address a corrupt system. While there are certainly more desperate means to make a point, be it a suicide bombing or a run for public office, Colbert has walked out of the ruins intact. It makes me think there should be a medal given for bravery in front of a camera. It makes me believe that good people can make bad people feel bad. That is exactly what happened. The bad people actually felt bad. And for good reason.