You are now leaving Moonbatistan and entering Asshatistan. Please have your passport ready. (Not that either place is all that strict about such things...)

"Mister President, first let me say we're not stupid, no matter what you and your advisors and your cabinet think. We know what's going on in our country and the rest of the world. More to the point, we are not nearly as afraid you and your friends want us to be."

Why are some people angry about this? Probably because we have seen GWB developed into some sort of bumbling imbecile of a personality. They want us to feel bad for him. But he's the leader of our country and he's not doing our country any good. I don't know if I would go so far to say he's ruining the country, but I would certainly say that the beginnings of a lot of future ruin is in place. And Colbert called him on it to his face. Honestly, I can not think of a more American think to do. You don't like the system? TELL THE PEOPLE RUNNING IT YOU DON'T LIKE IT! This is our history and our way of doing things here. And now people want Colbert to feel bad about doing the most American thing he possibly could do? And people want US too feel bad about Colbert doing something a lot of have been wanting to do for a long while? The time for being civil passed a while ago. It passed in the 90s. And the Republicans are the ones that got the ball rolling. Now that someone else picked up the ball and ran with it, they're sitting at the other end of the field bawling about how someone took their ball.

Whether Colbert was "funny" or not is hardly the point. Colbert was accurate, devastatingly so. He made point after point about the either stupid or criminal (or both) things the Bush administration has done. Moreover, he did it right in Bush's face. One gets the idea that Bush has little or no idea what "the other side" thinks of him (we are told that he does not bother to read the newspapers). Well, he knows now. Thank God for Colbert's courage.

colbert was funny and he spoke the truth. i hear retardedly stupid shit all the time that people are laughing at on tv. notably - george bush hasn't made a joke as funny as even one of colberts worst in his whole life, except kiss ass press people laugh all the time. even rumsfeld - who makes me scared when he smiles - gets laughter from the press corps.

anyway - i am sorry but colbert was funny. it just shows how out of touch the press corps and the govt is with the common american if they didnt get his jokes. what a bunch of crap.

argh - whatever - i am used to it. people are stupid.

Maybe bitch-slapping the president is a big victory deserving of all the accolades. Maybe we ought to pop the corks, sit back and relish the brashness, the ballsiness, and be happy at least that for a brief moment in time, a man who has difficulty pronouncing nuclear, was humiliated by an unexpected slap in the face. But I don't think so. Maybe the brilliance of left-leaners ought to accrue into braininess rather than truthiness, well crafted indictments rather than slipshod sarcasm, profound observations rather than glib euphemisms framed in code that people "get" - those same people who already understand what's happening. Instead, why not try a humane variation of what the Republicans have done: compose arcane theories about imperialist aims while at the same time dispensing messages that everybody "gets"?

I know, that's all too idealistic. I should curl up on the couch with a beer, a bag of chips, maybe a BLT, and be thrilled that for 60 minutes every night the Comedy Channel bitch slaps all the dudes we can't get reach. If I was a right-leaning type I'd be thrilled to see how obsequious most of the left-leaning crowd is in being pleased so easily. But then, why not be both, like Colbert, so that one can enjoy the worst of both worlds. That's really the message to "get".

While watching the WHCD on Youtube the other night, I inadvertantly woke up my wife who was asleep down the hall. She came to check on me because she thought I was "crying hysterically." There WERE tears rolling down my cheeks and if it hadn't been so late at night, I probably would have been jumping up and down, pumping my fist in the air, screaming "Go Stephen Go!"

Sure he "bombed" in front of this audience. But then, why WOULDN'T he? The Washington Press Corps should be ashamed of itself - that a comic has more sense and honesty than all the major

news outlets combined is a hard thing to stomach for anyone. Is it any wonder that so many people are supposedly getting their news from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report?

But somewhere, Edward R. Murrow is smiling. And thanks also to Joan Walsh who called the press on their humorless reaction to what may go down as one of the finest moments in American comedy.

Heard interesting thing on Talk Of The Nation yesterday. Neil Conan (sp?) and his "political junkie" regular took a call from a dude wondering about the general media dis of Colbert's performance. Both TON fellers had been at the dinner and agreed that they hadn't found it that great. Neil took note of the online uproar, and posited the theory that the routine had played much better on TV than it had live. He also lauded the universally, at least on-line, panned skit that preceded Colbert, and said something to the effect that it had been a tough act to follow.

I watched the film "Undercover Brother" in the theater with a boisterous and delighted crowd and found it quite amusing. When it came out on DVD I hurriedly rented it for a date with an archly-intellectual chick and spent the evening horrified that I had found such a ridiculous and juvenile effort remotely funny.

Different venue, different crowd. Conspiracy?