He lobbed the bomb of truthiness right into the middle of their smug....

(finish it as you like)

If the MSM does not think Colbert was funny and many other people do, I guess the only solution is to run the entire routine and let the American people decide!

HAHAHAHA!!!! Now that is funny, even thinking the MSM would ever let that routine get broadcast! They do not have the courage that Colbert's left pinky finger has, which has less courage that his right pinky finger.

I'm a big Colbert fan, and in all honesty I don't think he was as 'on' as he usually is. My guess is he was pretty damn nervous to be delivering that piece in front of the Pres. I also think the bit he delivered could have been better (yoghurt? Butter?), the video was definitely too long.

Having said that, I still think his performance was staggering. I've watched it several times, and keep being impressed that he had the guts to do it. Whether he was 'funny' or not, the media should never have ignored someone actually being able to penetrate the president's bubble, and having the courage to do what SC did. Period. If the story was "Colbert bombs while calling the president on his numerous lies" then so be it. I was on the NYTimes web page today, their little snippet about Colbert and the blogs is their most emailed story. This should tell them clearly that they made a mistake ignoring the story, unless SC was write, the president is the decider, the press secretary tells them, and they type...

...and I'm sure there were plenty of people, good, upstanding, moral citizens, who did not think he was all that funny either. Yet, he was also brilliant and devastating.

Yes, the emperor really is without his clothes!

Funny? As if that were the issue. Colbert's performance was a stunner - I watched it, indeed, everyone I know watched it with a shocked, awed expression on our faces.

He was crossing lines of humiliation and utter embarrassment - not his own, but the man's on his left - in a way I've never seen before, certainly not in recent memory. Who gives a damn whether he was funny? He was shocking, bracing, in a way that I guess somnolents like Noam Sheiber can't understand. He laughed twice, he said. I gasped a few dozen times at the audacity.

Get this: Colbert brung it directly to the source. For twenty minutes he cracked the whip over the head of one of the most isolated/buffered presidents in our history.

That alone is worth more than a thousand laughs.

Seems that the opinion of those in attendance-- including at least 2 NPR commentators-- was that the material fell flat, especially after the twin-president bit. Hey, I LOVE Colbert, and I loved the material he did, but I WASNT THERE, AND NEITHER WERE YOU. Salon and the entire progressive blogsphere risks credibility by insisting that Colbert was funny/entertaining/whatever, when those from the left and right who were actually THERE disagree.

Let's let history decide whether or not he was funny. My guess is that the moment will go down in hiostory as one of the most events in political comedy. He was brilliant beyond words and funny too. I'd rather he get panned by the press than bumped off or Nick Nolte'd which is what I really fear for the guy right now.

Of course the press corps didn't think Colbert wasn't funny. When you're the butt of the joke, you're expected to huff and puff with injured pride and announce, "That's not funny!"

unlike the friggin' President, who is so f***ing funny I can hardly stand it.

That missing WMD routine - kills me every time; the lies to get us into the Iraq war - hilarious! the Niger yellowcake momologue - had me in stitches! and what's funnier than warrantless wiretaps?

And his torture skit - the one he cooked up with Gonzales and Rumsfeld - laughed til I cried!!!!!!

Stop me if you've heard the one about the tactical nukes and Iran . . .

According to the MSM, Colbert is funny on the "Report" but, somehow while remaining true to character, he was not funny at the WH correspondents dinner. Same man, same character, same approach! What was different? Colbert dared to shatter the rules of these typical DC get-togethers by refusing to resort to lame and anodine jokes of no relevance that allow politicos and the MSM to share a laugh and continue deluding themselves that everything is fine.

Thye hired Colbert expecting Rodney Dangerfield (in itself an indication of their savvyness!) and they acted shocked when they got a Swiftian performance! Satire may be funny at times but it does not have to be, especially when men a and women are dying, our finances are being destroyed, our liberties curtailed...

I am just glad that you are highlighting the pathetic response of the MSM to Stephen Colbert. I feel like we're in Russia passing around samizdat that's written in a language that the media doesn't understand. Who cares if he was funny anyway? I don't want to laugh. I want the politicians and the media and everyone else to realize what trouble we're in and stand up and do something.

I am so glad that Salon exists. Keep it up.

The hardest thing for a comic to do is plow through his routine in front of a hostile audience. The Washington crowd that night was giving nothing back, but Colbert refused to let that stop him. He wasn't bombing at all; it's just that the vast majority of his appreciative audience wouldn't see the monologue until hours or even days later. He was playing to America, but the 2500 or so in the room just had better seats.

Just think what an opportunity he had that night. Imagine having the chance to stand fifteen feet from George W. Bush and take your time laying out each painful truth of his corrupt, incompetent, murderous administration in front of a Washington press corps audience.

I get a kick out of the righties (and even the lefties) who winge and sob that Colbert was "over the line" and "should have shown more respect." Why? Does the president who joked about starting a war over missing WMDs deserve respect? Of course not. He deserves a heaping spoonful of stealing truth every time he dares show his face in public.