Breathtaking! This was the most daring, gutsy peformance I have seen since Andy Kaufman. Maybe the Washington pundits want to pretend this never happened, but I guarantee that Colbert's work is all anyone will talk about for weeks. It may be the kind of symbolic act that lives forever. I will never forget it.

Colbert wasn't being funny. He was being serious. It's what makes the performance truly ingenious and unbelievably magnificent. What on earth are these correspondents doing at this masquerade with an administration that wants to subpoena and intimidate them into compliance and silence? Colbert is facing attacks for appearing "too caustic," "too biting," too "severe." How about too accurate? The press corps is squealing becauce Colbert has shamed them to the marrow. The White House and its blog-olytes because Bush was finally pantsed in public. (This is a great line you could really hear Bush saying: "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.") Irony of ironies, Colbert the Comedy Central gag man has become the last guy with the granite to behave like a real, serious WH correspondent. Every gaping silence and uncomfortable pause was a moment of deafening comedic success, in which Colbert scored higher the more he generated embarrassed quiet. It takes courage and nerve not to be a crowd-pleaser. However, the Helen Thomas bit was two times too long.

Colbert's timing is part of his success. He picked an occasion and an hour when his ensnared audience had its collective slip showing. There were no knowing winks; no "we're all in this together" facetiousness. With any luck, he's destroyed this ridiculous event forever.

Colbert wasn't being funny. He was being serious. It's what makes the performance truly ingenious and unbelievably magnificent. What on earth are these correspondents doing at this masquerade with an administration that wants to subpoena and intimidate them into compliance and silence? Colbert is facing attacks for appearing "too caustic," "too biting," too "severe." How about too accurate? The press corps is squealing becauce Colbert has shamed them to the marrow. The White House and its blog-olytes because Bush was finally pantsed in public. (This is a great line you could really hear Bush saying: "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.") Irony of ironies, Colbert the Comedy Central gag man has become the last guy with the granite to behave like a real, serious WH correspondent. Every gaping silence and uncomfortable pause was a moment of deafening comedic success, in which Colbert scored higher the more he generated embarrassed quiet. It takes courage and nerve not to be a crowd-pleaser. However, the Helen Thomas bit was two times too long.

Colbert's timing is part of his success. He picked an occasion and an hour when his ensnared audience had its collective slip showing. There were no knowing winks; no "we're all in this together" facetiousness. With any luck, he's destroyed this ridiculous event forever.

Last weekend I witnessed one of those accidental revelations that perfectly explain why things are the way they are -- in this case, why the corporate news media in America is so worthless. George Clooney was being interviewed concerning Darfur, when he observed how unfortunate it is that celebrities are having to educate the media about that issue, instead of the other way around. The amazing thing was the reaction of the interviewer, who actually seemed offended by the suggestion that journalism should involve journalists looking beyond press conferences and going out and finding important stories. The notion that a story such as Darfur might be inherently newsworthy without the context of a famous person drawing attention to it seemed utterly alien to the interviewer; and all of this helps explain why America has been so badly served by the corporate media during the last decade, as Stephen Colbert so eloquently described.

Colbert's brilliant, poetic surgery on GW and the press is scoring big on the web- the place where this type of thing will be played over and over and over again.

This is going to be a CLASSIC MOMENT in comedy history.

The one thing I think you left out is the reason Colbert was invited. It's the same reason John Stewart was invited to Crossfire. The media doesn't understand that the primary target of TDS franchise is the media. They say time and again that the show makes fun of current events and they ask inane questions like, "Doesn't the reelection of Bush provide more material for you?" They asked the same questions about Clinton. The White House Press Correpondents inviting Stephen Colbert to a dinnerostensibly honoring the president is like a federation of fundementalist Christian preachers inviting Jesus to speak at a dinner to honor Pat Robertson. They're not sure what he's about, but they know they talk about him a lot. It's as if they threw a turd in their own punch bowl because they convinced themselves it was a banana. To expect Colbert would have delivered anything minutely different from what he did is realistic only to media who seem to embody Dorothy Parker's old axiom, "It doesn't matter what they say, as long as they talk about me." Narcissistic bastards.

Stephen Colbert proves that the role of the court jester is still alive and well today. If we are to have an unreproachable, imperial presidency, then we must have all of the subversive mockery that was necessary in the era of spoiled, disinterested royalty. It was painful to watch the attendees' disquieted laughter, but also liberating to know that someone still can talk that way to the President's face.

I am amused by this coming as Bush has publicly lightened up in an effort to combat the dismal approval ratings of late. It should be interesting to see what he does in the next few weeks.

One thing's for sure, though. I don't expect such a spectacle to be repeated any time soon. It's definitely time for Bush to shore up support in the backwash...err...base.