If Colbert's performance had happened 100 years ago, JFK would have put in his book Profiles In Courage (a book about patriotic Americans standing up and speaking truth to power in front of audiences that didn't want to hear it). As far as I'm concerned, Nathan Hale couldn't carry Stephen Colbert's jock strap.

The corporate media are the ultimate goats of our era, even worse than Bush and his cronies. The media silence on this historically significant event is creepy and Stalinist. I pray they still have enough of their souls left to feel shame.

At first I thought Colbert was hilarious. Then, I realized that wasn't his aim. As many have said, and as of this last viewing, I see that he was not trying to be funny but that he was speaking in fury as most of us have felt. That he did so within inches of GW Bush was so brave as to be awe-inspiring. I didn't laugh at all this time. I was only grateful that he was courageous enough to know he wasn't funny, that something, say, our country, and our midea were more important to hold to the flame. That's what he did, and we have a real hero in Colbert, no one has dared saying what he did, to whom he did. Bravo.

I just happened upon CSPAN Sat night just when Stephen Colbert was being introduced at the WH Correspondence Dinner. Being a Huge Fan of the Colbert Report, I was absolutely delighted and surprised that he was the keynote speaker at the event. His performance was intensely captivating, intriguing, balsy, hilarious. As John Stewart noted the next Monday, the crowd thought they were going to get that same guy from his show. That's why they signed him up! WRONG!! Stephen was speaking from his conviction and conscience, something the Bush administration and most of the press corps do not have. They are only concerned with advancement in their careers and themselves. To see the stunned look on their faces made it all the more intriguing and funny. Colbert did what many of us could never get an opportunity to do. Give the president an earful. I don't know if his speech will change a damn thing, but it might! Maybe some more people will see the truth and not the truthiness.

Funny is no longer the point. The stench of death wafting through the place has me gagging too hard to appreciate comedic gags. Bush's "where're the WMDs?" skit at a previous correspondent's dinner was not meant to be funny, it was a fuck-you to all the people that weren't thrilled about invading Iraq. Colbert is just returning the affront. I couldn't give a crap if the tuxedoed traitors weren't amused; in fact I’m very pleased they were not. A taste of venom serves them right: they deserve a barrelfull.

He might have made Time magazine, and is today's flavor of the month. But this time next year, few people are ever going to remember what he said. Because most of it was 2nd rate material. Poignant? What are you guys smoking?

When the American press ignores this(Colbert report...!), it is either agitated by Colbert's show or afraid...........so so afraid they might loose their jobs. In the presidency of Dubuya, I read a lot on his so-near close impeachment following numerous scandals(in and out of the U.S., political and economic..), but somehow the dicussion does not go forward an inch after that. It is because some people(not the U.S. citezens, nor the world), but a few who want to accomplish their needs by keeping this neo-conservative, dum-witted and laughable court jester who does not know what the heck he's doing in the white house but gettting a fistful of dollars.

the only thing he knows it pretty well is this: He would laugh at Colbert, not because of his carefully alloyed iroy or jokes, but because the press can do nothing about his presidecny.....so why not see how a stand-up comic try out knocking him a tidbit? Bush's presidency era will end, someday.....but till then it will be untouchable and then historians will fire up against him....well, after the fall of rome

Usually, when you have explain a joke to somebody, by the time they get it, it's not funny anymore. Here, we have the opposite case: people explaining why Colbert's jokes weren't funny, and oddly enough they just get funnier and funnier. Go figure.

Colbert's brand of ironic humor generates the laughs internally; hopefully making one reflect. Was his performance successful as measured by generating side splitting laughter, neutral and non-threatening to his host and immediate audience? No.

Was the performance successful as measured by the controversy/dialog it has spawned? I think so. Was this the intention? Maybe. The proverbial 800-pound gorilla is in the room. WAKE UP EVERYONE! We've been asleep at the wheel too long! Mom and dad have been derelict in looking out for our best interests.

One of the reasons used quite often to call the blogosphere paranoid about lack of coverage of Colbert is that late night comedians make jokes about Bush all the time, and that's not covered either. So this morning, there's an AP story about how the number of Bush jokes by late night comedians is so much higher than ever before...Care to trot out the next excuse? That's certainly a familiar pattern.

I'd love to hear what Mort Sahl thought of Steven's performance.

Personally, I thought every subtle little rip into Bush and the press corps was a return to informed, intelligent, and topical comedy that an infomed and intelligent public should expect from informed and intelligent people. The fact that the press corps has turned into a bunch of brain-dead, spineless lapdogs is clearly evident from the disconnect between the public who thought Colbert was great and the reporters who didn't like being taken to school by a comedian.

This whole episode reminds me of Jon Stewart's presence on Crossfire just before that show was canceled. There's nothing funnier than a Republican in a bow-tie castigating a comedian for not being fair and balanced and incisive on a show that precedes another tour de force with puppets who make crank calls.

Steven Colbert was a riot. It's too bad that the press has become a source of punchlines instead of bylines.