Are you happy with His Majesty's government ?

quote:

Originally posted by AlexanderVH:
Well, that much is still possible. A standup comedian stating in a cruel and ruthless way what all of those present couldn't (and afterwards wouldn't report about either).
Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner.

It's not funny.

Alexander,

Well I laughed. Seriously though, I am surprised his mic was not switched off and that he was not bundled out like that poor old Jewish gentleman was at the last labour party conference in Brighton.

Stephen Colbert, brave man. Bush deserves public ridicule. He deserves public hanging. Hopefully the latter will follow the former and soon.

Erik

That'll be him off the Bush Christmas card list.

Beano

I read the link, Eric.
In the US, Mr. C's speech was well-covered by the NBC nightly news this evening.
At least they are not afraid of a little criticism.
In many countries around the world Mr. C would have been summarily executed for such a display. I'm glad I live in a country that wouldn't do that.
(Maybe just out his wife if she was an undercover CIA agent, but that's another story...)
David

quote:

Originally posted by NaimDropper:
I read the link, Eric.
In the US, Mr. C's speech was well-covered by the NBC nightly news this evening.
At least they are not afraid of a little criticism.
In many countries around the world Mr. C would have been summarily executed for such a display. I'm glad I live in a country that wouldn't do that.
(Maybe just out his wife if she was an undercover CIA agent, but that's another story...)
David

To be fair I am very surprised he was allowed to finish his speach. I am impressed that he was not thrown out. I can only assume people were too shocked and awed. I could not believe the nerve of the guy. It takes some bloody balls to do what he did. His life will never be the same again. Some will hail him as a hero, some will want to give him a good punch on the nose or worse. I've never heard of the guy before, and I think that unless he is an attention seeking looney he is a very brave man. I agreed with most of what he said. What a performance eh?

Erik

He did have a set of brass balls to make that speech.
Since W didn't have Condi or somebody nearby to tell him what to do, he just sat there.
Imagine the reaction if he had stopped him in any way... The point of this dinner was a roast, it has a long tradition.
Now Mr. C has what all folks like that want -- attention.
David

I'm in two minds about this. I obviously agree that Bush deserves everything that's coming to him, but also I'm aware that Americans love their President as a figurehead - irrespective of who it is - and to public humiliate "The President" in this way might backfire. If weighing up patriotism against the dislike for Bush, probably patriotism might come out on top. This display is more a British thing. As a political comment, it's going to go horribly wrong.

On second viewing, it's fairly mild

About how television and written press handles this, here's a hypothesis.
It's not that they actively bury it, they just have a weird 'strictly business' way of deciding on whether something is newsworthy. They're storytellers.
The twin presidents sketch was more entertaining, less difficult and less awkward.
The Colbert sketch is maybe not very suitable to extract a snippet from that stands by itself.
It was politically relevant, but I wonder how much weight that has for the press. After all, this was a comedian on a dinner party.

The part that comes closest to burying would be 'risk averseness':
The first sketch steers free of trouble while Colbert's sketch takes on the journalists as well as Bush.
If you show it, you can come under attack for liberal bias, and political news sources may prefer to talk to other people first .

I think the attention on the web made the event relevant for the televised as well as for the written press.
But the focus went to Colberts credibility(self serving , hijacking etc) instead of to the content.

So the end it fizzles. But I wouldn't ignore what it doesn to the people who were there in the room. The next press conferences of 'snowjob' , everyone will be thinking of Colbert. It does lower what the journalists are prepared to accept. I hope.

I don't know if the word 'humiliate' is appropriate here. It's not too hard to make it that way of course in a secondhand story