Was it because the targets of Colbert's humor were in the room, and Colbert wasn't in the box, at a safe remove?

If I was being eviscerated, I probably wouldn't have laughed too hard either. Ever been at a comedy club when the comic puts a heckler in his place? The heckler usually isn't the one laughing.

That the DC press corps is an echo chamber shouldn't be news to us by now. I dug Colbert's bit, but I'm hardly surprised those in the room didn't.

I'm a little puzzled, though, at the rush to canonize Colber. If you watch the "Report" on a regular basis, it wasn't that far off what he does every night. The man's a comic, and my guess would be that he'd prefer to be free to pillory everyone equally.

Colbert is profiled in this week's Time Magazine 100 Most Influential. NBC's Brian Williams writes the profile about Colbert and closes with the following. "My friends tell me that Colbert's mimicry of the narcissistic, preening, puffed up personalities who inhabit TV news these days is spot on. Personally, I don't see it, but they find him very funny." Was anything other than the party line of "He's not funny" to be expected following Saturday's beat down.

Today we learned that nobody likes to be made fun of. Even at a roast, the audience wants you to be in their side. To say nothing for the fact that Mr. Colbert was the paid entertainment for the evening, a dancing monkey, not a fellow nobleman. So, they pretend it never happened. They talk about everything else EXCEPT the media being skewered on live television. "That's not funny... You're and asshole!" they say if cornered on the issue.

Basic human nature. Nobody likes to be made fun of. Responding with "your wrong, it is funny!" will result in a childish trap (is too! Is not! Is too! Is not!), and the country will stop paying attention.

So fellow comrades! Next time you are on O'Reilly, don't take issue with it being funny or not. Talk about the truths (and the truthiness) that Stephen Colbert spoke to power. Discuss Stephen Colbert's enormous balls (clean shaven and polished). Discuss the facts behind the accusations. Discuss the failings of the Bush media.

duuuuuuuuuuuuude. thank you. history is full of people who take small courageous actions for the good of us all. they risk things like jobs, marriages, freedom and sometimes life. people put it on the line in big and small ways all the time. So did you, brother and I want to say thank you. you stood up in front a man who may be remembered as the greatest criminal in the 21st century and told him to his face what we all know to be true. For the immigrants, the black folks like me, the students, the iraqis and soon the iranians, to all the poor people and anyone who critically thinks...you took a stand. I salute you, Steven. Am getting dramatic but i mean it.

Joan Walsh is right on in her description of the media's reaction to Colbert's performance at the Correspondence Dinner last week. At first I was puzzled by the reaction of the media types that criticized it on the evening cable broadcasts. Then I realized why - they did not like being taken to task for rolling over during the first 5 years of the Administration's terms. It was hitting too close to home.

I thought Colbert's performance was great and funny and biting and appropriate!

John Varine

jvarine@alltel.net

If the press corps are following the Bush Administration's playbook, they'll change their rationale again (and again, and again). Expect to wind up with "we ignored the story so we could bring democracy to Stephen Colbert" by the end of the month (after going through "we ignored the story because we thought he had WMDs under his jacket", of course).

Colbert's brave act showed me how free we can be in this country despite the times, something that I really haven't felt in a long time. And to me, that's far more sacred than being funny.

Slaughterhouse 5 is not funny.

Catch-22 is not funny.

A Modest Proposal is not funny.

Black Mischief is not funny.

The finest satire is not intended to make you laugh. It makes you nod your head grimly and mutter "ain't it the truth". But I suppose finer points of litrature are not taught in J-school.

Mr. Colbert, you've got a big, round, hairy pair and I salute you.

Chris Rock at the Oscars, Jon Stewart at the Oscars, Steven Colbert at the White House Press Association...when the powerful and pretentious hire speakers whose claim to fame is needling the powerful and pretentious, they've got no right to act all surprised and indignant when they get the needle.

In the 1984 movie "Ticket to Heaven," a stand-up comic infiltrates the retreat camp of a religious cult (think: Moonies), looking for his friend whom he suspects has been sucked into the sect. The cult members are friendly and cheerful, but, at a camp talent show, all of his jokes fall flat. He just can't get any of the brainwashed participants to laugh.

There is one oddball who DOES laugh, and the comic tries using this guy as the target of a few jokes, which earns him the laughter he's been yearning for from the rest of the audience. This turns out to be a slippery slope, and, as the comic yields more and more ground, we see him sliding into the rhythm of the camp, just as his friend had. He eventually snaps out of it and flees from the camp -- "rescued" by that same oddball guy who literally wrests him from a group hug.

Most people I know would do anything to not feel alone. Most of the funny people I know would do anything for a laugh. How lonely it must have felt up at that podium, looking over that sea of frightened, squirming conformists. Good for Stephen Colbert for not breaking stride or breaking character.