Colbert’s Smart Bomb

Hands down this was the best performance of the year. I literally was in knots from laughing so much, especially at how well it was done. Mucho respect goes to Stephen Colbert and his staff for delivering this “episode”. All of his jokes and sideline jabs were timed beautifully, and he pulled no punches. They were so on target, that all the baffled Washington media machine could do was reel back with some lame rhetoric about how “unfunny” Colberts’ keynote performance was, which just made what happened even funnier and breathed new life into the performance. Below is a weblink to the uneditted C-SPAN broadcast of the keynote speech along with an article from Salon.com that sums up Colbert’s brilliant performance best:

The real sign of Stephen Colbert’s success at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner wasn’t his jokes—which, from beginning to end, were spot-on, from Bush’s handling of the war (“I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq”) and his low-30s approval rating (“I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he’s not doing?”) to sidelong whacks at John McCain, Fox News and Donald Rumsfeld, among others. And no, it wasn’t the grim-looking handshake he received from the president or the icy glare he received from Laura Bush that let us know that Colbert hit his targets. The proof of his accuracy lies in how badly the Tracy Flicks of the Washington press corps reacted. After all, this wasn’t the baby-soft slapstick they usually get at the correspondents’ dinner. (Anyone else remember when Darrell Hammond got all gushy from meeting Bush in person in 2001? Yeesh.) Sure, C-SPAN’s cameras captured a few journalists tittering at each other like naughty schoolgirls, but for the most part journalists sat on their hands –- while just moments before, they were laughing uproariously at President Bush’s incredibly lame skit with a Bush impressionist. That was Colbert’s real feat: Showing us the real Washington media world, where everyone worries so much about offending someone, anyone, that the least bit of frank talk turns them into obedient little church mice.

Stephen Colbert’s Keynote speech (worth every second of viewing)

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