That was not funny - that was scary. Scary to realize that there is nothing funny about this administration and the radical direction they have taken this country in just five short years. Odd and scary and interesting that a moderatly funny comedian would flail admirably at this permanent corporate machine - and he didn't miss a beat - he was "on message". It was akward, to say the least, but war crimes are worse than that. LA 5/04/06

Joan Walsh got it exactly right. Bless you for your perfect analysis of not only the OUTSTANDING Colbert performance, but the sorry sorry media response and the even worse sorry sorry 'explanations' why it was not funny. Like you so perfectly put it: EITHER YOU GOT IT OR YOU DIDN'T !! I'm actually proud of myself and my family that we laughed our butts off!! And we also had a blast saying "Look at the audience, they don't know if they should laugh or not!!" "They were frozen" I don't care what the tightass Right says about this. As a matter of fact, it's good to see they don't have the honesty and the intelligence to know and admit that they've hitched their wagons to a horse that can't pull them. Fine, so you're a 'flag waving' right wing conservative republican,a real patriot, but doesn't that mean you put America first?? Doesn't that mean America the country comes first?? Isn't that the meaning of patriotism ?? IF so, then how do these patriots square the outsourcing of the American manufacturing industry so vigorously supported by this administration?OR the letting of a Communist Regime in China continue to steal intellectual property and maintain the worst trade-imbalance in history?Why fight the cold war if we are going to let Communist China win the peace?? Or the pitiful federal response to Katrina? OR the busing in of undocumented workers to work for the companies that 'won' the no-bid contracts in the gulf area instead of offering those jobs to those American Citizens that lost everything. That would have put a stop to any talk of racism and the Right, the administration, could have doled out no- bid bucks to their corporate buddies and still helped the worst affected by Katrina.SO did they? NO, and they even tried to get away with rolling back the minimum wage so their corporate buddies could really rake it in. I don't want to sound like I'm ranting here or going off on a tangent. All I mean to say is that to me the Bush (or CHENEY ) administration hides behind that flag-waving, if-you-don't-agree-with-us-your-not-a-patriot B.S. that caused the MSM and Congress to believe that incredibly phoney 'proof' that led us to war. WMD and a nuclear program are a reality in North Korea and Iran, but we went where?? That's why I love Stephen Colbert for being so on target and proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that all the 'phoney-ness' is true AND OBVIOUS. His beautiful performance laid them bare for all the world to see. Anyone who denies it under any false 'explanations' or 'reviews' is just covering up for their own embarassment at being associated with this greedy, oil industry bunch. Or, like Joan Walsh so perfectly explained it: THEY JUST DIDN'T GET IT !!!!

Thank you for this chance to express myself.

SHAME ON THE MAINSTREAM MEDIA FOR STICKING THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND REGARDING STEPHEN COLBERT'S BRILLIANT SATIRE WHICH CALLED ATTENTION TO THEIR BECOMING LAPDOGS OF THE BUSH ADMINSTRATION BY THEIR ROLLING OVER AND PLAYING DEAD TO ALL OF THE BUSHIES' LIES, ARROGANCE, AND ATTACKS ON THEM AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH. AND, THANK GOODNESS, HELEN THOMAS FINALLY GOT HER POUND OF FLESH FOR ALL OF HER SHABBY TREATMENT BY SCOTT MCCLELLAN, THE NERD OF ALL NERDS, WORST PRESS SECRETARY IN HISTORY AND BY W HIMSELF!!! --BLUEFIELD,WV

It's hard to accept that there's a new sheriff (bear??) in town. Perhaps, like Scheiber, some have been detractors for years. But that performance and its aftermath shows their impotence. Colbert is packing the heat.

The other day after I first saw the Colbert video I thought, " Wow, how brilliant and brave was that - to stand right in front of the press and president and make them choke on their own ineptitude." I didn't consider at that time how it would be received or spun, etc. But then I heard a lefty press person on Keith Olberman's show say that Colbert would have been more effective had he been funny. Keith Olberman even weighed in with something to the effect that perhaps some ethical line had been crossed by Colbert. Now it is all over the mainstream media (who, at first, completely ignored the fact that Colbert was even there!) that he was not funny. Sadly, this seems to be the marginalizing strategy of an offended (wounded?) behemoth (does the press have talking points?). I am happy that I saw it on the internet because part of the effect of Colbert's performance is watching Bush and the Press squirm in their seats frozen by his long slow curve ball. The laughter is nervous and the feeling of discomfort is palpable (Andy Kaufman anyone?). I think that he probably was not funny to those in the room - perhaps even those who may have thought differently had they watched this alone at their computers - because he wasn't playing that room, he was playing to all the rest of us out here in the real world who watch these news typers and readers. I think that Colbert's performance was perhaps one of the single greatest moments yet captured by C-SPAN and thus played unexpurgated all over the internet. It socked us all in the face. It was a performance of great genius actually - one, that will mark the crash of this Hindenberg with a fiery explanation point. Whether it was funny or not to Chris Matthews, Lou Dobbs, or any of the rest of the people who need to get their story straight is quite beside the point I think.

Conservatives and the Mainstream Media (MSM) are missing the point. The issue is not how funny Mr. Colbert's speech was, nor how scathing or original his comments to the president were. What is at issue is Mr. Colbert's unprecedented exposure of how corrupt and controlled the MSM really is. Take a look at the general media response: There was none! And take a look at the response of the journalists at the dinner: Fear! Fear of the president, fear of his administration, fear of their own ineptitude. Stephen Colbert did what most journalists (with some exceptions, i.e. Salon) cannot seem to do: he showed America the truth that night. He wasn't trying to be the first to reprimand the president or to be original in his criticism. All GWB needs to do is watch television or read a paper to find out what the masses think of his policies. Colbert was doing what he was asked to do, which is jive with the very people the dinner was "celebrating": the press. The "attack" on the president was just an added bonus. And, frankly, it's about time journalists wake up and begin doing what they dreamed of doing as young people, before corruption and greed replaced sentiment: that is to honestly and fairly inform the people, and maybe improve Democracy in the process.