Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

Colbert told Bush he could end the problem of protests by retired generals by refusing to let them retire. He compared Bush to Rocky Balboa in the “Rocky” movies, always getting punched in the face—“and Apollo Creed is everything else in the world.”

Turning to the war, he declared, "I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq."

[...]

Colbert also made biting cracks about missing WMDs, “photo ops” on aircraft carriers and at hurricane disasters, melting glaciers and Vice President Cheney shooting people in the face. He advised the crowd, "if anybody needs anything at their tables, speak slowly and clearly on into your table numbers and somebody from the N.S.A. will be right over with a cocktail. "

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, "When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday."

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides of the story — the president’s side and the vice president’s side." He also reflected on the alleged good old days, when the media was still swallowing the WMD story.

Addressing the reporters, he said, "Let's review the rules. Here's how it works. The president makes decisions, he’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know--fiction."

I think I'm surprised that Bush showed displeasure. I would have expected him to grin broadly, showing his usual understanding of remarks made to him....Thanks, Tom, for sharing.
- jpoxon 5-01-2006 4:33 am

bush looked displeased, but i have the hunch there were a whole bunch of jokes he wouldn't even get until he went to sleep. the awkward silences were fantastic. i also liked the bit about the glass being 68% empty and the remaining 32% being mostly backwash..
- spd (guest) 5-01-2006 10:23 am

We've been discussing it over here. I laughed hardest whenever the room went silent. I wonder if that clubby bunch of Washingtonians and celebrities realize how much people hate their guts?
- tom moody 5-01-2006 11:14 am

One of the most interesting things about it is how it's being ignored by the mainstream press.

politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=184499&threshold=1&cid=15235134
- paul (guest) 5-01-2006 7:27 pm

There's some wingnut action on that thread:

"I'm sure the decision to invade Iraq wasn't an easy one. There is also a clear history on Iraq's part of a) possessing WMD, b) defying the UN and its inspectors, and c) supporting terrorism. Let's also not forget that by all accounts, fewer are dying in Iraq now than did under Saddam Hussein. It is also a good thing that a full democratically elected government has just been formed."

What a moron.
- tom moody 5-01-2006 7:46 pm

We were watching it on YouTube last night at [undisclosed location] and laughing our asses off.

Everyone agreed that the jabs at Bush and the press were stronger than normal, and long overdue.

In other words, it was newsworthy.

So this morning in the New York Times I see a big story from Elizabeth Bumiller about how rip-roarin' funny the Bush impersonator who performed earlier was. No mention at all of Colbert. Not even his name.

- tom moody 5-01-2006 7:56 pm

atrios quotes someone from the huffington post who believes this is another instance of the mainstream media "buying into the conservative/rightwing narrative" about bush being a regular guy. but this is really more like propaganda management. obviously colberts performance was what was newsworthy which they chose not to cover, or as we say, was filtered out. i suppose we are saying the same thing but it really is more pernicious than its made out to be.
- dave 5-01-2006 8:01 pm

Yeah, I don't buy that they really want to talk about how funny Bush is. It's more that they don't want to talk about Colbert, and that gives them cover. Plus some, like Elizabeth Bumiller, may simply have had an uncomplicated good time watching Bush's antics.
- tom moody 5-01-2006 8:07 pm

I'm constantly reminded of the 80s TV miniseries V. The rebels rip the human mask off the Nazi lizard from space on live TV, and within minutes there's an announcement that fictitious footage has been shown by the rebels and they've all been killed.
- tom moody 5-01-2006 8:11 pm

story dropped because he ripped the press with equal zeal and deadliness. who wants to write their own obit? only komakazi comedy writers.
- bill 5-01-2006 8:27 pm

bumiller has been cheerleading for the bushistas all along. i recall from day 1 she was given the "thumbs up" by lynne cheney as she was one of the select journalists invited to a "get to know you" tea at the vice presidents residence. i wouldnt be surprised if good ol' judy miller was among the "acceptable" journalists. maybe i should have put quotes around "journalist" too.
- dave 5-01-2006 8:28 pm

factesque has been on bumillers ass for a while. check out this compendium of posts. also, shes taking a year off to pen condis biography. nuff said.
- dave 5-01-2006 9:02 pm

She's totally fucking biased. I gag whenever I see her byline.
- tom moody 5-01-2006 9:07 pm

Billmon has some good commentary on this:

Colbert used satire the way it's used in more openly authoritarian societies: as a political weapon, a device for raising issues that can't be addressed directly. He dragged out all the unmentionables -- the Iraq lies, the secret prisons, the illegal spying, the neutered stupidity of the lapdog press -- and made it pretty clear that he wasn't really laughing at them, much less with them. It may have been comedy, but it also sounded like a bill of indictment, and everybody understood the charges.

If things were going well, if Bush's approval ratings were north of 60%, gas was 80 cents a gallon and the war was being won, I suspect Colbert would have gotten a different reception. His audience could have pretended to be amused -- in that smug, patronizing way we all remember from the neocon glory days. But we're long past the point where the Cheneyites and their journalistic flunkies are willing to suffer such barbs with good humor. The regime's legal and political troubles are too serious, the wounds too open and too deep for the gang to smile while somebody like Colbert gleefully jabs a finger into them.

Colbert's real sin wasn't lese majesty, it was inserting a brief moment of honesty into an event based upon a lie -- one considered socially necessary by the political powers that be, but still, a lie.

Like its upscale sibling, the annual Gridiron Club dinner, the White House Correspondents dinner is a ritual designed, at least implicitly, to showcase the underlying unity of our Beltway elites. It's supposed to demonstrate that no matter how ferocious their battles may appear on the surface, political opponents can still gather in the same room and break bread, with the corporate media acting as the properly neutral host. It's a relic of the good old days of centrism and bipartisan log rolling ("the end of ideology"), visible proof that in the American system, there may be enemies, but there are no mortal enemies. And so last night we had Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame sitting at one table, Karl Rove at another, and no knives were drawn.

The light entertainment at these events is also supposed to reflect the same spirit of forced good cheer, to the point where even matters of deadly seriousness -- things that in other countries might cause governments to fall -- are treated like inside jokes, as with Shrub's looking-for-the-missing-WMDs-under-the-couch routine. Ha ha ha. We're all friends here!

The underlying message, never stated or even acknowledged, is that there are no disputes that can't be resolved within the cozy confines of our "democratic" (oligarchic) system. Friends don't send friends to jail -- or smash their presses or abolish their political parties or line them up against the wall and shoot them.

The problem is that the tissue of this particular lie has been eroding ever since the Clinton impeachment, if not before, and is now worn exceedingly thin. It's becoming harder and harder to conceal the ruthlessness of the struggle for power, or ignore the consequences of losing it.

There were people at last night's dinner who really could end up in jail -- depending on Patrick Fitzgerald's theory of the case and/or the results of the next two elections. Things have been done over the past five years that can't be undone; crimes committed that can't be uncommitted. If Colbert faced a tough crowd last night, it was probably because so many of them understand that the Cheneyites and the Rovians really are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenberg, and that if the airship goes down in flames their own window seats are going to get pretty toasty. Jobs are at stake. Careers could be at stake. For all we know lives could be at stake.

It's an ugly moment, and expecting people like that to laugh at their own misfortunes isn't very realistic. I'll give Colbert major props for his political courage, but none for knowing how to please an audience. If he'd really been working the room, he would have thrown in a few step-n-fetch it Arabs, a snotty Brit and some white trash clowns -- like the stock characters in American Dreamz. It wouldn't have been nearly as funny, but it might have helped the kool kids forget their sorrows, at least briefly.