The targets of satire are not supposed to find the jokes amusing - if they did it wouldn't be satire! What we have to ask ourselves is this: why did Colbert say what he said? He would not have done it to entertain the guests and he probably did not believe that his words would change the way the Whitehouse's pet hacks think.

My personal feeling is that Colbert wanted to show those US citizens who care about having a free, independent, objective and skeptical press that there are still people in the media who are prepared to stand up in front of the President and the MSM and openly criticise them both. In recent years the US press has more closely resembled the Chinese media than the media in the country that prides itself on Democracy and freedom of speech.

Well done Colbert but shame on the US media for not asking if there may be an element of truth in Colbert's words.

"It's silly to debate whether Colbert was entertaining or not, since what's "funny" is so subjective."

Actually, what's funny exists both in the observer and inherently in the object. So, a bottle of "Pert" shampoo is funnier than a bottle of Pantene, though not appreciably so.

Steve Colbert was not entertaining? What can you do for a group of people whose idea of entertainment is plates spinning on sticks?

Joan Walsh really hit it with this quote "If Colbert came off as "shrill and airless," in Lehman's words, inside the cozy terrarium of media self-congratulation at the Washington Hilton, that tells us more about the audience than it does about Colbert."

Having watched the YouTube streams before they were taken down, I completely agree. I've long noticed that in comedy situations, the audience is almost as important as the entertainer for creating the environment of laughter that makes the entire performance feel more cohesive. (In fact, the audience can be *more* important than the entertainer when the latter is lame and the former came in the mood to laugh.)

The audience at the Correspondents' Dinner started out with that automatic, 'we're listening to a comedian so we're going to laugh' laughter, and slowed down only as the post-fraternity/post-sorority kids among them realized it might not be so cool to do that. Of course a comic performance without laughter feels "shrill and airless." No matter how brilliant (and I do believe Colbert was brave and brilliant) it was.

Having lived in DC for 5 years, I had flashbacks to that herd mentality, insincerity, and even high-school schadenfreude that I encountered everywhere. It's real, and it was at that dinner in spades.

Great commentary, Ms. Walsh.

Watching Colbert at the WHC dinner made my week--probably my month. Not only was his satire biting, it was also funny as hell. My only criticism is that the video segment went a tad long, but that's a quibble. And using Helen Thomas was brilliant.

This is some of the funniest material that I have seen in a long time. There is absolute consensus on this in our office, where it has been the buzz ever since we crowded around a computer Monday morning to watch it--jaws dropping at the audacity and craft.

Then we started seeing the MSM giving us their parallel universe take on Colbert. Not funny. That reaction, unfortunately for them, emphasizes Colbert's satire--that they are little more than self-important scribes.

After the dinner, the Bush twins were all over the media. We were told that Colbert fell flat, in part, because he followed such a brilliant routine.

If this is so, why is the Colbert segment the one that everyone is watching over and over again? I haven't seen anyone point to the Bush twins as "gotta see" video.

I guess that those of us outside the MSM don't really know what's funny.

I watched Colbert's brilliant performance on Democracy Now! and it panned to Justice Scalia doubled over with laughter as Colbert made obscene gestures to him during his routine. Justice Scalia may be a pinnacle of conservatism that I wish would disappear from the Court, but he is widely known for his wit and sense of humor. He also, clearly, is not afraid to laugh at himself and must have already been enjoying Colbert to be in full belly laugh by the time he was the brief target of Colbert's humor. Vive Colbert!

I think what most of Colbert's critics are missing is thae fact that it wasn't a comedy routine as much as it was performance art. There were no big jokes for big laughs. The real humor was in what he was saying, to whom and where he was saying it. His audience was not the smug and self-important people in that room. He was using that crowd (from the President on down) as a prop. He was exposing and insulting them right to their faces for the amusement of that 68% who've had enough.

Of course the cable gas bags, media elites and politicians weren't amused. They were the punchline.

But that's because he was so deadly accurate. Colbert did not make me laugh, either. But he made me share his skit with everyone I know. He made me talk about this administration and the Washington press corps with my *father*, a lifelong Republican. He made me me see just how hypocritical our nation's press has become.

OK, maybe Colbert wasn't funny. But he was brilliant. He was courageous. He was honest. He was right. He was amazing.

All those people who didn't "get" his performance show the limitations of their imaginations. Bush deserved so much more truth than anyone has apparently had the balls to give him during his entire presidency. Perhaps it is because he is a member of what has become a Bush mini-dynasty. Perhaps it is the way this administration has extended its stranglehold over the media since it has taken office. I mean, come on! Bill Moyers a subversive? Where do they get off?

People talk about having respect for the president. Why should we respect the ignorance and wrong-headedness of the Bush Whitehouse? Why should we respect its choice to throw away thousands of lives, both American and Iraqi, in a war which has only stirred up the hornet's nest of terrorism and done nothing to quell it? Why should we respect it's pattern of creating laws which destroy our environment, but then claim to preserve it? Why should we respect the fact that only the wealthiest 1/2 of one per cent of Americans have seen their standard of living increase since Bush became president, while all the rest of us have lost material wealth? Why should we respect the fact that this presidency has single-handedly lost all the world support we could have gained because of 9/11, and squandered the international goodwill which we briefly enjoyed, because of its aggressive middle east policies. Why should we respect the systematic destruction of our human rights, all in the name of fighting terrorism? The list of Bush's transgressions is endless. We should not respect this presidency, which is arguably the most damaging in all of U.S. history. We should respect the power of the office of the president, which George W. Bush has so blatantly abused.

I am so glad *someone* stood up to this president to his face. I am apalled that it took a comedian to do so. And I am so very impressed with Stephen Colbert for having the balls to do it.