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Thursday, May 4, 2006 12:00 AM

Colbert: Not just a flop, but "rude" and "a bully" too

The Washington Post's Richard Cohen says that Colbert should have used his shot to tell Washington things it needed to hear.

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  • Thursday, May 4, 2006 09:57 AM

    What this administration wants to hear...

    It's odd how many people are falling all over themselves to state how unimportant and/or misguided (and therefore forgettable) Mr. Colbert's performance was. It's strange the amount of vehemance being leveled at such a tepid performance. The complainers seem to want it both ways; he was "airless" and "uninspired" but he was also too "biting" and "pointed". The idea of "speaking truth to power" is dismissed as only being appropriate when applied to situations in which apparently death is the outcome (how these right-wingers wish for just such a political landscape), but then they go on to prove it's aptness by piling on and lending their voices to the throng of great pontificators crying "foul" and worse yet, "unfunny!". If indeed his only crime was being unfunny then his performance would have been relegated to the dustbin of past performers who agreed to do "nice" and then forgotten. I'm sure Jay Leno would have been perfect.

    So obviously it was some words that were said that has caused this great outcry, but worse than that, "ideas" that were inferred that were not agreeable to the Boy King and those who rush about trying to shelter him. This administration is allergic to words not scripted and approved well in advance so it's pretty rediculous for Cohen to demand that Mr. Colbert say things that were "needed to be heard". Colbert's whole routine is predicated on the fact that the press consistantly assumes that commenting on artificial constructs passed off as "policy" by the administration is real journalism. It's always surprising to me how many right-wingers don't "get it" and regularly appear on Colbert's show as if the fact that he plays a mock conservative mouthing garbled, distended versions of sanctioned talking points is "good enough". It's almost as if just hearing a proximation of what stands for "conservative" is just as acceptable as the "real thing" because they spend so much time spinning reality into a pretzel shape that they are unable to recognize irony when it bites 'em on the ass which, sorry to say, is what happened to all of the tender-minded members of the press and the administration who are now working really hard to ignore the sting.

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