I realize this is probably childish and nihilistic, but I consider Stephen Colbert’s routine at the at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner to be the political highlight of the past decade. I was surprised to learn that Colbert thought about taking it even farther and that Tony Snow and Antonin Scalia were complimentary about it:
Colbert disclosed that he did substantial self-editing upon looking at the president and discerning that he wasn’t ecstatic. He had planned to play off Medal of Freedom awards Bush had given former CIA Director George (“It’s a slam dunk”) Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer; joshing about how Bush was clearly giving awards to everybody in sight.
“‘But nobody gives this man an award,'” Colbert recalled as the thrust of the riff he scrapped. “‘That ends tonight. I’m going to give the highest honor I can give….a certificate of presidency.'”
It would be akin to “something you get from The Learning Annex for taking a course. ‘I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge…'” Colbert looked at Bush and said to himself, “I’m going nowhere near this.”
When the dinner was over, “I don’t think I’m dying. I go to sit down and nobody’s meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I’m doing a great job.” Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.
Jim
Really? Then I’m childish and nihilistic. But I would modify it to say it was the political-media highlight of the decade
AhabTRuler
Clearly Snow and Scalia were listening to the game on a transistor radio during the routine.
Jim
Maybe I should say: It would’ve been the political-media highlight of the decade if the essential truth of what Colbert was saying had sunk in. Obviously he got under their skin (see Richard Cohen’s infamous whine) but they really are just as smug and insular as ever. I sometimes think the up-and-coming generation is even worse than the one starting to fade into retirement.
Martin
I found it difficult to watch the first time. It was obvious to me that most of that room would have tazed him if they had the chance, and Bush killed him with an axe. Colbert cut far the powerful people in the room deeper than the audience was comfortable with. But it was a needed thing he did. Too bad nobody had the balls to do it 3 years earlier.
Lex
I thought it was the media-crit event of the century, just six years in. But then I’m the kind of person who can put 25 years into the newspaper bidness and still think that the sooner The Washington Post goes bankrupt, the better.
arguingwithsignposts
Funny, I was just watching this again the other night. Colbert sh*t in their punchbowl, and it was a thing of beauty. It was even better than Stewart on CNN’s Crossfire (which was, in itself, a thing of beauty), because it was a “truth to power” moment.
the sad part is: it didn’t change a damned thing.
dmsilev
Scalia has more of a sense of humor than Richard Cohen? That’s a strange mixture of fascinating and terrifying.
-dms
DougJ
You’re right, I probably should say “political media” or something like that.
r€nato
It was indeed a master performance in so many ways. What I found particularly endearing about it, was that clearly whoever thought up inviting Colbert, really didn’t ‘get’ his show.
They thought he was going to go up there and be funny, not go up there and be the same Colbert he plays on TV. The cluelessness of The Village bites them right in their arse.
jwb
@Jim: “I sometimes think the up-and-coming generation is even worse than the one starting to fade into retirement.”
I would be surprised if this wasn’t the case—because really this is all they know.
dr. bloor
@dmsilev:
More like Scalia’s sadistic impulses allow him to appreciate seeing someone(s) take a finger in the eye, even if it’s being delivered by someone at the other end of the political spectrum.
phantomist
Plus he had the nerve to do it while not being fat. (Fingers crossed) Hope he lives in a giant house, without windmills and has flown non-commercial.
Cat Lady
I read that about Scalia last week, and no lie, I’ve been cogitating on it since. This just does not compute. Tony Snow, meh, but Scalia? Maybe it’s an IQ thing? I hate Scalia, and I’m trying to keep that contempt and hate for him as white hot as it was before I read that. Help!
EDT: and, as soon as I posted I get my answer – he’s a sadist. Thanks dr. bloor!
WereBear
This was a pivotal performance. It was not only that Colbert had the ‘nads to say what needed to be said, and do it with so much funny.
It was that The Village was not amused, and disparaged the performance, only to have the clip explode on Youtube as people saw, and decided, for themselves.
A template for the future of media. I think it did change things.
JenJen
So much awesome.
I have no idea how I’d have gotten through The Dubya’s without a substantial dose of humor. Colbert, Stewart, et al are national treasures.
mvr
That was one bracing bit of TV even on the small YouTube screen I saw it on. And very much needed. I loved how it took off after all (well maybe not all) the critics panned it.
Incertus
@r€nato:
I know. And it happens again and again. Didn’t Tom DeLay put a link to one of Colbert’s bits from his show up on his website as an example of a member of the media who gets it?
gogol's wife
It’s interesting to read that he didn’t realize at the time that the audience wasn’t with him. Every time I watch it (which I do regularly), I marvel at his self-possession, the way he keeps going, not missing a beat, while surrounded by hostility. I don’t ever expect to see such a remarkable performance again. And “they’re rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindeburg” has become a household saying.
TR
Definitely the highlight.
It was so good they had to dial it back down to zero the next year with Rich Little.
jwb
@gogol’s wife: And yet I have many conservative relatives and acquaintances who claim to love Colbert…
MoeLarryAndJesus
Seeing Colbert’s performance altered my perception of the word “intrepid” forever.
Grace Nearing
@r€nato:
Urban legend has it that William Kristol recommended Colbert for the gig. So not only did Kristol not get the show, none of the other people involved got it either. I remember Kristol appearing on The Daily Show and at the end of the segment, Stewart told Kristol he was the funniest guest (or funniest Republican guest) he’d ever had on. I like to think both Stewart and Colbert are playing Kristol hard.
cleek
perhaps Scalia is an actual “conservative” and, because of his lifetime appointment, has no need to fluff the elected politicians. he can see them as they are: demagogues.
Andy K
@dr. bloor:
I’ve caught a handful of Scalia interviews over the last ten years, and he’s a genuinely funny guy. The first time I realized this is when I tuned in in the middle of some NPR program or another, without a clue as to the identity of the interviewee, and found myself chuckling at some comment he made. More than being surprised, I found myself a bit concerned that someone on the right wing could actually be pretty quick-witted.
asiangrrlMN
I am childish and nihilistic as well because I LOVED Colbert’s routine.
And, yes, I am on of THOSE people, but we have not begun a new decade. Get off my lawn.
Jim
@Cat Lady:
I think you and Dr Bloor are both right. Snow and Scalia are both smart, nasty sumbitches. Of Bush’s four spokesbots, I always got the sense that Snow was teh only one who knew exactly what was going on and exactly what he was doing, and he enjoyed it. I bet Rove also secretly liked it, watching the puppet who called him Turdblossom and made him walk his lapdogs in the rain get served, and all those pretty people in the media get it right along with him.
Cat Lady
Colbert holds up a mirror to the press corps, and everyone but them can see what’s reflected. I’d forgotten how long it took for either the WaPo or the Times to mention the brouhaha, and then they trot out Richard “I’m funnier” Cohen. Jim Cramer played Richard Cohen’s role on TDS, which signaled the end of CNBC’s credibility. Court jesters have always served the highest purpose.
AkaDad
The political event of the decade, for me, is America electing the first black President.
Nellcote
Post Colbert’s Big Night, I note more use of DS/CR clips in the MSM. As though the point was to pay them off with more celebrity rather than to internalize the criticism.
ps. cspan2 gives Malkin 3 hours to wax philosophical on Sunday. Plus bonus 3 hour repeat. Feel free to twitter/email/phone in with your comments or questions!
Anne Laurie
Tony Snow-job and Little Nino were/are supremely confident in their status as Alpha Authoritarian Arseholes.
Unlike such testosterone-challenged pretenders as Darth Cheney and Shrub the Lesser, Tony and Nino could serenely enjoy the antics of the court jester, secure in their knowledge that comedy may sting but only enhanced interrogation can really hurt.
Nellcote
@AkaDad:
Indeed. It’s always the big giant caviate when people go on and on about how much 2009 sucked.
Ben Richards
@Andy K: He was pretty funny on the 60 minutes interview as well. He had a funny line about one of his sons (one of something like 9 kids) taking one for the team by becoming a priest. My wife and I laughed at that one…
M. Bouffant
@arguingwithsignposts:
it was a “truth to power” moment.
the sad part is: it didn’t change a damned thing.
Sadly, the telling of truth to the powerful (or anyone else) does not result in much.
We must either gain more power, or reduce the power of the powerful.
And I doubt words will do it.
Alex S.
I can respect Scalia’s version of conservatism. I disagree with him, but he is standing on his own firm intellectual ground that allows him to stay above Colbert’s criticism. However, the difference between him and the elected republicans might only consist of the need to get re-elected. If Republicans campaigned as they govern they’d disappear after a few years.
Slightly off-topic, I just read Andrew Sullivan’s comment on Dick Cheney’s torture policy and I think that Sullivan, if he didn’t have the intellectual ground of catholicism to stand on, would completely agree with Cheney.
Little Dreamer
Did Colbert inspect Bush’s COLB first and determine that it was a true and correct copy stating he was born in
TexasConnecticut? Did Bush show it to over 50% of voters upon demand of inspection and prove that the document was real and would hold up as prima facie evidence if challenged in a court of law?Just wondering!
;)
drillfork
Commenters are right of course when they say it really didn’t change anything. Still, I think the importance of the moment is that, at a time of free-speech
caged penszones, someone critical of what was going on actually got within earshot of those in power. In other words, Colbert said this to their (Bushies and Villagers) faces. And for one night, the smug fratboy actually had to sit there and take it. That’s why it was, and remains, awesome.Remember too that Colbert’s speech as was much an obliteration of the Village as it was of the Bush Administration. The fact that even Keith Olbermann was doing damage control with his esteemed “correspondents” days later showed that Colbert’s words stung…
Desert Rat
What AKADad said.
The highlight of the decade was Obama’s election.
It’s amazing, 14 months on, that something we never thought would happen in our children’s lifetimes, let alone ours, electing a black man President, is considered run of the mill.
It’s even more amazing to think that the two people who most likely would have won the Presidency (I don’t think McCain ever had a shot, to be honest), were a white woman and a black man.
The country we became in November 2008 will never be the same one it was before, regardless of whether Obama succeeds or fails.
And the beauty of Colbert’s speech wasn’t tearing apart the Bush Administration (by 2006, a number of mainstream pundits were doing that). It was the tearing apart of that media.
“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!”
When he wrote that line, he peed in the punch bowl of two-thirds of the audience that night. It was a thing of beauty, any way you slice it.
Mike in NC
Only because Henny Youngman wasn’t available, and Rich Little was slightly less dead.
Violet
@WereBear:
Testing this two-paragraphs-in-one-blockquote thing. Not feeling confident.
Agree with this, more or less. I’m not sure it changed anything specifically, but it did show the power of YouTube in letting people decide for themselves what they think about something.
In that regard, it’s a key point in media.
Little Dreamer
@AkaDad:
Touche’ sir!
Leelee for Obama
I was euphoric for weeks after that gig. My favorite bit was a reference to the melting ice caps. “Enjoy that joke”, he said, “your grandchildren won’t understand it.” The Hindenburg bit had me breathlessly saying , “Oh, no you didn’t!” But he did and I loved him for it. Stewart did a holy shit spit-take at the beginning of the next Daily Show, and then Stephen and Jon did a bit at the turnover, and Colbert made some comment about having to run home from DC as fast as his loafers could carry him. It was GOLDEN! These were the guys who made my life during the Bush interregnum bearable. Thanks for the reminder, DougJ.
Political highlight of my life was the election of Barack Obama. There has been no other President I have felt as sure of, and I voted in 1972, so this is not my first time at the hope rodeo.
Little Dreamer
@Violet:
I have no evidence of this, I’ve only heard that wingnuts at least used to believe Colbert was actually on their side (is that still true?) – so it seems the media was stuck having to highlight the speech even if they hated the idea. As I remember it, both right and left were eating up the performance, both on blogs and youtubes.
ellaesther
@Nellcote: Though, to be a pain in the ass about it (if not here, where?), that event (the election of the first Black President) happened in 2008. The inauguration was in 2009.
But you know: Yes! I would have to agree.
But #2: @DougJ: already said he should have said “political-media,” so I agree with him, too.
Agreement, all around!
Chuck Butcher
I wonder what the 18-30 year olds are going to make of the last 2 years, remember who they will be in the next 20 years.
bemused
@Martin:
Watching the crowd was fascinating. No matter how they pretend they don’t deserve the VIP villager label, they couldn’t hide it that night.
El Cid
I think it’s one of the greatest uses of political satire in U.S. and perhaps world history.
Jim
I just dialed up the youtube, and Colbert is introduced by some AP ‘droid who says Colbert “has the unenviable task of following not one but two Presidents George W Bush”. Took me a minute to figure out what he meant. It was that high-larious bit where Bush and a Bush impersonator did a Patty Duke thing. That’s what they think is funny.
eemom
Colbert’s performance WAS absolutely effing brilliant, and if that makes me agree with Scalia about something……..well, I’ll just have to live with it.
‘Sides, there’s probably one or two other things we agree on. That Italian food rules, for instance.
drillfork
@AkaDad:
In August ’08, just before Palin was unleashed, I was debating a friend about Obama’s chances. My friend was convinced that the country still wouldn’t elect a black president. Granted, Obama being black probably guaranteed McCain 35-40 percent of the vote. But I said I still expected him to win, because at that point that country was so FUBAR the majority just had bigger concerns than Obama’s pigmentation.
And the rest is history.
With lots more FUBAR…
Violet
@Little Dreamer:
Some wingnut relatively recently made a comment that showed they still weren’t in on the Colbert joke. I can’t remember it specifically, but I can’t believe that four (?) years in, Republicans still don’t get it.
Little Dreamer
@Violet:
OMG, they really ARE idiots!
Thanks, I haven’t laughed so hard in weeks. :)
AhabTRuler
No, that’s an event of a lifetime; let Colbert have the sodding little decade, fer chrissakes!
JoyousMN
I was reading blog comments the night that Stewart killed Crossfire. Suddenly everyone was talking about what he had done.
I quickly found and watched it and was completely blown away by his bravery and honesty. I fell in love with Stewart that night.
When Colbert did the correspondents dinner it was a similar event on the intertubes. Suddenly everyone was saying, “You HAVE to see this!”
For me those two events were a breath of fresh air in the muck that was the Bush Admin. But as others have pointed out, it was equally a huge take down of the media. Both men said, “You have no clothes.” and the media hated them for it.
Tony J
It’s a pity he didn’t, and it’s probably because he didn’t that Snow and Scalia enjoyed it so much. Skewering the MSM for being pathetic lapdogs to conservative bullshit artists would sound funny to the guys who benefitted it from the most.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Funny, I’m re-reading I am America (And so can you!) so I was thinking of that. I don’t know if I’d call it the political highlight of the decade but if there’s a list of best comedic performances of all time, it belongs at number one. Stewart is cute and all but Colbert is one hell of an actor.
And he exposed Mr. Good Ol’ Boy Aw Shucks Heh, as the evil self-loving bastard that he is.
bemused
@JoyousMN:
I saw Stewart on Crossfire as it happened. It was a thing of beauty. I was home alone & doing a happy dance, yelling “Yes!”. I scared our 2 cats into leaving the room pronto.
Ash
@Little Dreamer:
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/01/news/en-colbert1
mai naem
Steve Scully the head of the WHPA the following year said they specifically picked Rich Little the next year because Colbert was somewhat controversial.
debbie
I watched Lesley Stahl interview Scalia on 60 Minutes. He may have a sense of humor, but he’s still a pompous pr#ck.
bemused
@debbie:
He is a prick. Most rightwingers don’t have a sense of humor so when the rare one does turn up, some might mistakenly assume a streak of humor makes him more humane.
On the humor topic, today a relative emailed me a “joke” that I assume she thought was funny. Photo of Obama & Tiger Woods at the WH. Caption by Obama: 2009 Peace Prize Winner
Caption by Tiger: 2009 Piece Prize Winner
Ugh.
Fleem
After Stewart’s “Stop hurting America”/”I am not your monkey” performance on Crossfire I wanted to hug him.
After Colbert’s speech, I feared for his life.
asiangrrlMN
@AkaDad: OK. Gotta go with this one.
MattR
@Ash: There was another article I saw more recently that said that conservatives have finally figured out Colbert is satire. However their new reality is that Colbert, the person, is a conservative who is playing a satirical Colbert character with the intent of mocking liberals.
Jim
Stewart’s old nemesis, Tucker Carlson, is starting his own webiste a la HuffPo. Should make for some humor.
Mike Kay
The political-media event of the decade was when Shrub landed on the aircraft carrier.
It was the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
Little Dreamer
@Ash:
Thanks Ash!
LMAO…
He is not on anyone’s side, but…
Too hilarious for words. :)
Andre
I think it was the signal moment of those years that made the disconnect between what the media was reporting (“War is bad, but Saddam has WMDs so we’re going along with the Preznit!”) and what most people actually felt suddenly plain. It was so odd seeing the people in power finally, actually, courageously confronted with the contempt and dismay that people had for them.
I still think it’s a tragedy of epic proportions that only people like Colbert and Stewart were (and are) willing to speak truth to power. This is the job of journalists, not comedians.
As for Snow and Scalia? I suspect that Snow was being politic, while Scalia was smugly enjoying an “I told you so” moment in his head (because he was probably one of the few people in the room who’d bothered to watch Colbert’s show before the speech and knew what everyone was in for.)
Fleem
@AkaDad:
Obama’s election is THE political event of recent times/the past decade. The Colbert speech is THE political media event. It laid the bullshit bare.
“This is a president who not only stands FOR things, but also stands ON things…”
Mike Kay
@Jim:
Problem is the base doesn’t read. They watch tee vee and listen to radio, but reeed’n and right’n is hard work.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Fxd.
Yes. That makes soo much more sense than he’s actually mocking neo-cons. Hey, maybe Obama is really Zombie Strom Thurmond in heavy make up. Jokes on us liberals!
mvr
@drillfork:
And, remembering those unhappy times, a bit of light in the darkness may well have bouyed those of us who wondered if we were the only ones who saw the idiocy. And in the end that sort of thing does keep you going long enough to knock on doors and make phone calls for the opposition.
geg6
As has been said already, Colbert’s tour de force was most definitely the media/Village moment of the decade. Hell, maybe of all time. Stewart would be a close second for killing Crossfire. Those guys, almost single-handedly gave me hope until I found BJ, to be honest. But the political event of the decade, IMHO, was the 2000 election. With the exception of the economy (which I would even argue would not be as bad), none of what came after would have happened or would have been as catastophic. And it certainly brought about the conditions that led to the most significant political event of my 50 years on this earth: the election of our first African American president.
The Republic of Stupidity
@Nellcote:
ps. cspan2 gives Malkin 3 hours to wax
philosophicalidiotic on Sunday.There… better… no?
The Republic of Stupidity
And as Freddy Kruger was fond of saying…
Leelee for Obama
@The Republic of Stupidity: The Malkin In Depth is pissing me off royally. I usually watch this program, and I will now need to find something else to edify my beautiful mind. ( Cheese or snow? )Watching our lady of perpetual outrage is beyond me even for a moment-three hours is against theGeneva Conventions.
Llellorin
@Jim:
This.
Anyone under 26 or so may not remember it, but the Republican Party used to be built from guys like that–smart, nasty, ferocious debaters who were very quick on their feet. I’ve never agreed with them ideologically, but there was a time when they weren’t morons.
The Republicans have rotted from the inside since they achieved dominance in 1994. 15 years of “two legs bad, four legs good” sloganeering and carefully isolated ideological preserves in academia have turned them from the party of Scalia to the party of Beck.
Leelee for Obama
@Llellorin: What you describe here is basically what happens in clans that inter-marry. Every now and then something really great comes along, but mostly, the diminished gene pool leads to reduction in mental acuity and a herd mentality, to protect the clan. Sad-but the Romans were destroyed by it in much the same way. One can only hope their passing is not all that cataclysmic, for the sake of the Nation.
Molly
I hadn’t seen that speech since the day after the dinner…just watched it again.
After everything that has subsequently unfolded, it’s even more striking to watch.
Colbert has balls of steel.
Steeplejack
I hatey-hate-mc-hate that stupid phrase “speaking truth to power,” but Colbert did just that. And he brought it with the thunder. Actually, he brought it with the thunder, the lightning and the golf-ball-sized hail. I am quite okay with that being considered the political highlight of the past decade. It marked the watershed moment when people could start to talk about all the crimes and idiocy of the Bush administration–or be heard on the subject–without immediately being branded as kooks and traitors. I’m not saying Colbert turned the tide, but that performance was the marker that the tide had turned. And it was certainly the first time I remember the Bush crowd hearing it face to face.
And I don’t think it was seen as a resounding success at the time. I remember, when Jon Stewart and Colbert were doing the handoff between their shows after that weekend, Stewart gave Colbert a setup question–“How’d that go?” or something–with sort of a “not well, obviously” expression, and Colbert made a rueful joke about burning a lot of shoe leather running back to New York. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I’m too lazy to look up the clip (if The Daily Show site even has it).
Just got home a while ago and haven’t read the whole thread, so the usual apologies if I have restated the bleedingly obvious.
justme
You can notice from the footage that Fat Tony is the only one laughing at his own skewering, and one of the few laughing at any of it. It almost made me appreciate him as human. Almost. Then I realized, yeah, what the fuck does he care? He knows exactly what he’s doing for the rest of his life, and everybody else can, well, vaffanculo.
MattR
@Steeplejack: I’d been meaning to find it and you inspired me to go to comedy central and do so. Here is a link to the toss (which has links to the rest of the episode)
Steeplejack
@MattR:
Awesome! Thanks for that.
SGEW
I think an important thing to remember about Colbert’s roast was that it was probably the first time that W. Bush had faced actual criticism during his presidency.
Colbert insulted him. To his face. The look that George had about halfway through makes it all worthwhile.
Sure, it might not have “done” anything (what could, at that point?!), but I suspect that it deeply stung Bush, himself, personally. That counts for a lot in my book.
[Also: I was in the studio audience a few weeks later, and Colbert came out and took a few questions, as he is wont to do (“. . . Before I go into character and become a jerk.”), and someone asked “How did W smell?” Colbert snapped back without missing a beat, “Lemony fresh; he smelled like victory.”]
Steeplejack
@SGEW:
Amen to that. If only Colbert had gone all in with the Learning Annex certificate.
Comrade Kevin
The C Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.
bernard
Colbert and Stewart. Two lights in the darkness.
Amazing.
amk
That was the first time I even heard of colbear. Have been a fan of his and stewart ever since. Two great finds of the y2k decade. And what a horrible decade it was.
Dan Robinson
Tucker Carlson: I wouldn’t want to go to dinner at your house.
Jon Stewart: (two milliseconds later, almost steps on Carlson’s line) And you won’t.
Stewart says “Just stop. You’re hurting us.” and the audience applauds. That is when you know that Crossfire was dead. Stewart told them that it was political theater.
The sad truth is that too much of this is political theater and the media are selling popcorn in the form of advertising.
Colbert at the dinner was just about as good as it can get. He was on fire. I think he could have juggled flaming chainsaws on a high wire that night. The “last third is just backwash”. Omigod.
But the election of President Barack Hussein Obama was the political highlight of the decade. For a couple of months after that, I would just say “President Barack Hussein Obama” and it would make me laugh.
After Colbert’s night, I had some coffee cups made up that say, “Reality has a well known liberal bias. -S. Cobert” and I use one at work.
Darryl
Further, not farther.
But bonus points for not adding “Also, too” like a complete moron would’ve.
Bruce from Missouri
If you watch the footage, Scalia is laughing his ass off every time the camera pans his direction, so I am not in the least bit surprised that he complimented Colbert.