I've been riding a rollercoaster of emotions over the Colbert speech: first, exhilarated over his performance, excited over the prospect that it would be discussed and celebrated in the "media," then totally bummed at the crickets Sunday morning.

But now, after reading the many blogs dissecting the MSM's ignoring of Saturday night's "main event," I'm starting to feel some joy: Colbert has given us a "two-fer", a spot-on roast of King George AND a wholly accurate picture of the sycophantic media. The WaPo, NYT, Tweety et al. have all painted their own portraits via their silence on this important news event.

Actions speak louder than words, and those folks are producing a real shout-out.

thank you, thank you, Michael Scherer. I have emailed your article to my masses who didn't get it. Colbert was brilliant indeed. I am so grateful you wrote about his speech.

A few months ago we downgraded from "enhanced" cable to basic (that is, the TV that used to be free in my childhood), and the only thing I miss is The Colbert Report on Comedy Central. His performance at the correspondents dinner left me breathless. The man is my savior, and maybe the republic's too. Oh my oh my oh my.

Mr. Colbert maintains his brilliance when the democrats are in power, which should be pretty soon, by the way. When Newt Gingrich starts providing campaign slogans to the dems, you know there is a serious rift coming (he genuinely offered this one: "had enough?" - Really - he wasn't kidding. Even he is sick of the GOP)

Poco

Every bit as good as when Don Imus took on the Clintons.

would someone delete Nancy Shea's personal information and expain to her she should NOT post her personal information on the internet?

help her!

I think they didn't laugh because they just didn't get it. I really mean it - I know they heard it but they all had this look on their face like "what is this man talking about." For me that told the entire story- the press -as we all knew before is just -well-stupid.

This talent for perception should be rewarded with a Profile in Courage for Colbert dared to tread in waters reserved for the compliant media penguins.

It's all about the B-movie Theory and Gil Scott-Heron will sing to you gladly if you care for a musical relief. We've been lulled by year-round silly season hence our anaesthesized turn to nostalgia.

In the part of the world where I come from, the word for this phenomenon is huhudious.

The best strategies against this are biting satire on the one hand and, on the other, what James Ellroy noted in American Tabloid, namely

"Our continuing narrative line is blurred past truth and hindsight. Only a reckless verisimilitude can set that line straight."

I heard Elvis Costello singing:

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me.

I wanna bite that hand so badly.

I want to make them wish they'd never seen me.

Nice job, Stephen! I wonder if a ray of light reached the conscience of even one sycophant.

For years I have watched the right-wing cheerleading disguised as news with growing revulsion, and I now rarely watch much more than Olberman for TV news.

The corporate controlled media have done a spectacularly horrible job of putting out the facts. And I laughed to the point of tears, while watching the C-SPAN coverage as Colbert went around the room exposing them all.

They deserve every thing coming to them. Colbert was just "a cloud, the size of a man's hand, on the horizon", forebear of the storm.

You see, when it comes to the media -- the kiss of the godfather is when we don't watch.

leftcoast

I want to second the recognition of Colbert's courage. He stayed in character and continued to deliver his assault without flaw as the uneasiness in the room climbed to levels palpable through even the junkiest internet streams. I can think of no other occasion on which the most powerful man on the planet had to endure, first hand, this kind of withering denunciation. (Surely any jester of yore who did the same would have been hanged.)

Most impressive to me is that Colbert had an opportunity to do the right thing and he embraced it. He could have pulled punches while still pleading liberals, but instead he scathingly declared the emperor and his courtiers naked - to their faces.

We all have "Colbert opportunities" in our daily lives; let's make the most of them.

Rob H. wrote earlier (see about half way on this list) that Colbert's performance (and the joy on this list about it) was so negative as to engage in a nihilistic tearing down of all the hardworking journalists in Washington who are actually trying to get the story. He claims that there's little journalists can do, with stonewallers like Scott M. and Ari F. (and now Tony S.) in the press room, and a largely leak-proof administration. He praises several aggressive members of the press corps, like Helen Thomas, D. Gregory, and a few others.

First of all, let me note that Colbert's performance was constructed in a way to praise the few press-room reporters (Helen Thomas, etc.) who have been asking reality based questions--note that in his audition tape, she chased him away with her "why did we go to war in Iraq?"

Second of all, the purpose of satire is to turn the heat up on vice, and the vice in this question--which I think any objective assessment will show--is that the major media outlets spent much of the past four years in a cosy, cowardly relationship with Washington's political establishment. It's hard work (to borrow the presidents' phrase) to write compelling journalism by painstakingly seeking out the truth. It's much easier to live in the press-room of the White House, and echo whatever gets said there. The problem is, while this model of journalism is cost-effective and cosy, it's also dangerous for our democracy. Not abstractly dangerous, mind you: dangerous in the sense that it helps start wars; dangerous in the sense that it erodes civil liberties; dangerous in the sense that it allows for corruption and a devil may care attitude about the country's economic and social future. 2500 soldiers dead, 300+ billion spent, environmental catastrophe on the horizon, national soul sold over torture kind of dangerous. The kind of dangerous that, frankly, deserves a little heat, however painful, in response, especially when objectors have been contemptuously shrugged off since 9/11.

So I don't think this was nihilism. This was a call to honesty, like Murrow's famous send-up of McCarthy. Those journalists who have been working hard should be happy to have this kind of help from a powerful outsider like Colbert. They can go to their editors and say: it's not my job to participate in Scott McClellan's farce. My job is to report what's actually happening--to the best of my ability (and you don't need secret insiders to do a good job of doing that--much of what needs to be said is publically available). It's those who have been dancing the government's waltz while the world burns who should now finally feel uncomfortable. That's right Capitol Gang, etc., I'm talking about you.

John