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by digby
I did not weigh in yesterday on the all time nobel prize for wankerism, Richard Cohen's masturbatory love letter to himself because well ... I just can't write about all the clubby DC insiders having hissy fits these days or I'd do nothing else. Greg Sargent did a great job of analyzing this battle between the blogosphere and the Smart People Who Are Authorized To Have Opinions. Peter Daou is also covering this brewing battle between the unwashed masses and their betters over at the Daou Report. And Robert Parry has written what I think is a valuable analysis of why the Colbert routine confused the poor little kewl kidz.
I do want to take this opportunity, however, to congratulate our first blogospheric graduate to full fledged membership in the kewl kidz club of America. It warms my heart to see one of our own making it big by trashing lefty bloggers in the pages of Joe Klein's TIME magazine. Our own little Wonkette is all grown up:
The low point in the fake controversy over Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner came when Gawker — the cracked mirror by which much of the media views its navel — ran a poll to determine whether, in fact, Colbert's routine was funny. The poll determined that Colbert was an American hero, which may or may not make him funny, but the fact of the poll's existence sure is. Talk about the politicization of comedy. Next we'll get focus groups and image consultants ("Those clown shoes need to be three inches longer if you want to bring in the soccer moms") and Joe Klein will write a book about how no one does improv anymore.
The politicization of comedy. Think about that. If you don't see why that is an amazing statement, especially coming from someone who made her name by being a political humorist (of sorts) then it would probably be best to click over to Jeff Goldstein for some delicious paste and peanut butter sandwiches.
The blogospheric debate — whining, really — about the mainstream media's "silence" on Colbert rumbled into existence with a post by Peter Daou. Almost 18 whole hours after the performance, Daou determined that the shtick — or, as one commenter put it, "a work of staggering genius that could only be pulled off by a man with testicles the size of Alpha Centauri" — was being ignored by the mainstream media in order to "shield Bush from negative publicity." Daou even intuited why they didn’t laugh: because they were shamed "when Colbert put them in their place."
Blindly pulling out quotes from comment sections --- done like a pro. She's getting her MSM chops perfectly honed. It's important to portray the left blogosphere as not only absurd tin-foil hatters, but humorless and dull as well, which isn't easy.
For the record, at the time Daou wrote his piece, there was tons of coverage of the dinner all over the television. The club was howling with delight at the good natured president laughing at himself with that impersonator. (Muy caliente!)
None of them mentioned Colbert. They didn't pan him, they didn't chastize him. They disappeared him. And if it hadn't been for the blogospheric reaction, his entire performance would have gone down the memory hole. Now, I find that interesting, don't you?
I agree completely that the press corps didn't laugh because they were being put in their place --- by Colbert. Two years ago they could hardly contain themselves when the good natured president exposed the entire press corps as idiots with his "jokes" about the missing weapons of mass destruction. Being put in their place by George W. Bush is something they positively love:
The Texas reporter began to ask his question, "You talked about the need to maintain technological"
But Bush, acting like an excited party guest who couldn’t keep a funny comment inside, interrupted the reporter to deliver the punch line. "A little short on hair, but a fine lad. Yeah," Bush said, provoking a new round of laughter at the reporter's expense.
The young reporter paused and acknowledged meekly, "I am losing some hair."
The reporter then soldiered on with a question about whether the administration would "go forward with the V-22" warplane, a question of particular interest to the economy of Fort Worth, Texas.
Bush, however, wasn’t through having fun with the young reporter, who "represents Fort Worth," Bush noted, prompting another round of knowing laughter from the national press corps.
Laughing along while the president humiliates one of their own publicly. Now that's funny.
Cox then says this:
Daou didn't actually make any specific claims as to the comedic value of Colbert's speech, though if he were aiming to write something that would make Saturday night's entertainment funny by comparison, he certainly succeeded.
How droll. And Michael Moore is fat, too. Snap! (Cue the kewl kidz to convulse in manly snorts.) Junior would approve.
Daou was obviously not trying to be funny with his piece. (He didn't mention ass-fucking even once.) But never let that interfere with an opportunity to insult a lefty blogger for being humorless.
And then there is the requisite pulling of the most hysterical comments you can find and using them as an example of how crazy the left wing bloggers really are. It turns out that Ana Marie's husband Chris Lehman didn't find Colbert funny and wrote that Colbert was "shrill and airless" on the Huffington Post garnering a vitriolic response from Colbert fans. I couldn't find the examples Cox used to illustrate this, but no matter. The Colbert lovers were often rude and we know how delicate the DC kewl kid sorority is. (Note to Mr and Mrs Wonkette: don't become sports writers. You want to see rabid fans.....)
She goes on to explain that the unwashed hordes didn't get what they wanted --- an admission from the whole wide world that Colbert was like, totally funny --- so we began to make too much of its "boldness" instead. And that is just naive. We lefty bloggers are nothing if not silly schoolgirls who don't know how the world really works:
Comedy can have a political point but it is not political action, and what Colbert said on the stage of the Washington Hilton — funny or not — means far less than what the ardent posters at ThankYouStephenColbert.org would like it to. While it may have shocked the President to hear someone talk so openly about his misdeeds in the setting of the correspondents dinner — joking about "the most powerful photo-ops in the world" and NSA wiretaps — I somehow doubt that Bush has never heard these criticisms before.
To laud Colbert for saying them seems to me, a card-carrying lefty, to be settling. Colbert's defenders might aim for the same stinging criticisms to be issued not from the Hilton ballroom but from the dais in a Senate Judiciary committee hearing. And I wouldn't really care if they were funny or not.
Whose being naive, Kaye?
I'm actually fairly sure that Bush hasn't heard these things before. The man is not exactly tuned into the zeitgeist. So we'll take what we can get. Bush isn't ever going to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee --- and the press hasn't exactly pressed him on these matters over the last five years, have they?
Which is the point. It's not about Bush or the Judiciary Committee. Who before has ever stood before the Washington press corps, assumed their sycophantic persona, and hoist them with their own petard? I can't think of anyone.
Ana Marie Cox used to do that online, along with the rest of us uncouth bloggers who rose up in frustration and screamed that the Emperor and his scribbling coutiers were dancing in the streets stark raving naked. (It wasn't a pretty sight, I might add.) Colbert took our message to them, in person, the other night and we celebrate it. That this witty pioneer of the blogosphere, who made her name deflating the pretentions of the insider club of thin-skinned mediawhores no longer identifies with that sentiment is a cautionary tale.
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digby 5/05/2006 02:51:00 PM Comment (0) | Trackback (0)
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