Someone may have said this 99 posts ago--I skimmed them as best I could...

Prior to the dark days of W, a satirist could go on a show like this and poke fun at the little things that gave a presidency its personality. With this admin. there are no little things TO make fun of, besides kindergarten language, and the look-a-like comedian covered that.

There's nothing left, folks. It's all death and destruction. So I was quite shocked by Mr. Colbert--not because he was so "LOL funny," but because he was so brave. To me his bit was a brilliantly written laundry list of W's blood and hurricane soaked blunders.

And so the corporate media at large ignores it because if they start reacting to Colbert's speech now, they look mighty lame, and then they just have to dredge up all the horrors while you're eating dinner. And if they do that then their TV constituents won't listen to their myriad pharmaceutical commercials for acid reflux disease and restless leg syndrome.

Get it?

That's my 2 cents. #101 or so.

Colbert is a performer, like Kaufman was a performer. Andy Kaufman performed to elicit a response. Sometimes it was laughter; sometimes it was anger. One thing for sure: Colbert ain’t George W. Bush’s monkey.

JPR, Birmingham, Alabama

Watching Stephen Colbert wasn't supposed to be funny like "funny, ha ha" it was more like "funny that guy got hit by that train."

It was like watching the bully get his ass kicked, while his family watched in silence. It was surreal. I kept waiting for Karl to pull the mic.

Damn.

I've never seen a ripping like that before and I'm from Philadelphia...

When you have a tooth ache you go to the dentist. But if it's a truth ache you have, then you've been listening to Stephen Colbert sink his fangs deep into the lies and failings of the Bush Administration and the blind media lapdogs.

Stephen Colbert bombed? When Stephen Colbert bombs it's a wisdom truth coming in.

I didn't laugh all that much either the first time I watched the video. But then I watched it again, and again, and read the transcripts, and finally the truthiness of Colbert's words settled deep into my funny bones. It was a painful and crafty truth extraction -- without anesthetic.

Dear Salon writers,

Don´t take their bait! By arguing over the "funny" issue and giving it so much space in Salon´s columns, you are getting sucked into the Colbert critics´ distraction game.

"Funny" is not the point. Saturday night´s White House Correspondents' Association dinner was not a Star Search for best comedian. Ok, so Bush wins. Are you happy now, Joe Scarborough and Ana Marie Cox and friends? And how should Americans feel about THAT? Their president was the funniest stand-up comedian in the room, never mind he put the country in the toilet? How should the families of dead soldiers manage the news that their leader is a stand-up comedian?

Where´s all the powerful stuff Scherer wrote about situationists in France... a revolutionary act... and what about "E Unibus Pluram"??

Folks, you have bigger fish to fry, and you were on the right track. Stick to IRONY, and don´t lose the momentum.

Get back in the ballgame, and stop agonizing about whether humour is "subjective". Sheesh, the country is in trouble-- who gives a shit about who was funnier??!!

John Cleese once said that when people laugh, you knew they got the point. The people in that room didn't laugh. Everybody I know who has watched it (primarily on the internet)thinks it's one of the funniest things they've ever seen. The only arguing I've been hearing revolves around which was the best line in the performance.

It appears the status quo remains in full force and effect.

It's the grandest problem with irony. No one was talking about Chris Rock's still-brilliant opening monologue at the Academy Awards however long ago, and it was similarly scathing--a routine that not only poked fun at the industry in question from outside, but also seemed to crawl inside its skin in some of the most uncomfortable ways.

Of course Colbert was not perceived as funny--he was talking, and talking seriously, about the same people who have passed such judgement. To those of us on the outside, he was everything we want a comic to be. Very rarely, when you're the audience member who's awkward evening-wear is in question, do you leave the show raving.

Luis

From the close to 40,000 thank you notes to Colbert over at thankyoustephencolbert.org/ one would have to acknowledge that the docile press corps caved in even more to the White House when they all decided, no doubt without having to be told by Karl Rove, upon a press corps unified talking point: he just wasn't funny. When 40,000 people found him hilarious, heroic, and truly patriotic enough to write and thank him, many more must also be feeling that way.

Thanks to you for this. I will keep my subscription to Salon. I have already quit the Post and the Times.

Colbert has the biggest, hardest stones in the country. Hurray for SC.

But when we talk about the WH press corps, what exactly are these people up against? They feed their families by being reporters. But the administration gets to decide, does it not, who is allowed in and who is chosen to ask a question? Therefore the WH Press Corps feeds their children at the pleasure of those they're supposed to poke and prod, question, cross-examine and lay bare? That's never going to work. Of course they're toadies, it's that or back to covering celebrities' children's birthday parties.

I agree with Sen and any other folks who commented similarly. Colbert was invited because he is a political funny man but funny wasn't the point on Saturday night. Colbert made the most of an opportunity to speak to a much larger audience. He couched his critique of Bush et al in a framework of humor but funny wasn't really the point at all. People applaud Colbert's skilled use of irony in his show, but by commenting on his funniness at the WHCD they really overlook the biggest irony of them all: He wasn't using irony on Saturday night. He was being earnest.