Been gone a while
As you may have noticed (if you’re one of the many … ones who read this), I’ve been inactive for the past 6 weeks or so. The astute observer knows that I am a college student, and the master logician will deduce that I have been busy with finals and various projects. They’re both right. I’ve been swamped lately, but as of about 9:30 this morning, I’m done with classes. That’s right, I took my last final ever at 7-fucking-50 in the morning. Whoever scheduled that shit can blow me. I don’t know what it is with the computer science department and getting the shaft on final exam schedules, but whatever geniuses hand down these schedules from on-high should try going through them. Graduating seniors should get to take all their exams in the afternoon. Period. Stick the freshmen with this early-morning crap.
In my absence from the blogosphere (relatively unnoticed as it was), I have certainly not been unobservant of the political scene. Both the astute observer and master logician will know what I’m talking about. And that, of course, is Stephen Colbert’s brilliant performance at the White House Press Correspondents’ Dinner.
I’ve been a fan of Colbert since his early days as a lowly Daily Show correspondent. To be honest, I expected exactly what I saw and what came afterward. Colbert gave an absolutely skewering speech to the very audience he lampoons four nights a week. And of course, their reaction was lukewarm at best. The president was very obviously distraught at having the embodiment of scathing criticism not relegated to a “free speech zone”, but no more than 3 meters to his left. The audience themselves, with the exceptions of Helen Thomas and Justice Scalia (who looked like he was about to explode from laughter), were subject to being called a bunch of pussies whose only duty is to transcribe the president’s decisions. (And also to spell-check those transcriptions.)
So in short, virtually every person in the room was against him. It’s not at all dissimilar to what happened to Jon Stewart when he hosted the Oscars. Stewart lampooned Hollywood’s arrogant back-slapping fest and got a pretty chilly response. So what’s the common element? The pride and arrogance of the people who wanted them to do these gigs. Stewart fast became a Hollywood golden boy for sticking it to the Bush administration and being single-handedly responsible for blowing Crossfire out of the water and off the air. So they wanted him to host the Oscars, almost surely with the expectation that he’d spend all his time making fun of George W. Bush. They obviously didn’t learn from his appearance on Crossfire. As Stewart said, he’s not their monkey.
Colbert had almost the same deal. The press loved how he lambasted Bill O’Reilly every night, so they thought, “Hey this guy should give a speech!” What did they figure he’d do? Tone it down? Did they watch his show? Colbert showed up in-character, doing the bits that won him the recognition and respect. Colbert’s not the a monkey either. He’s got these things called “balls”. You know, those things the Bush administration severed from between the press’ legs in the name of fighting the terrorists.
So what was the reaction to Colbert’s speech? Outrage at his audacity? Cheers from the supposedly liberal media for making fun of the president to his face? No, try dead silence. All the media could talk about was how hilarious Bush was, side-by-side with an impersonator. Wow, he made fun of his own idiotic speech patterns. Again. The press refused to acknowledge Colbert’s speech in anything but passing. Either they were so incensed at his comments as to their cowardice, or they’re just as castrated as he said they were by refusing to write about something which might upset our precious leader in a time of war.
But if blogs have proven anything, it’s that the press can’t ignore what the people want to talk about. Colbert’s speech was a hugely popular download from places like YouTube and BitTorrent. C-SPAN had YouTube pull the video because they are going to make a DVD out of it. Yes, that’s right. C-SPAN. Making a DVD. Of something that they aired. Everyone and his brother who still believed in free speech was busy talking about Colbert. Like him or not, what he did was too significant to be ignored.
Now, two weeks later, people are still talking. But Colbert has just gone on with his show, business as usual. I’ve always pegged Colbert as the type of guy who’s fairly humble and doesn’t recognize his own significance. Anyone who’s that over-the-top when portraying an arrogance asshole simply has to be able to see it from a rational point of view.
And that’s his talent. He makes people uncomfortable with their own rhetoric. When the social troglodytes in the Republican Party see him bombastically and enthusiastically parroting their talking points, they become genuinely concerned. Colbert did an interview with a congressman from George, and the topic of gay marriage came up. Colbert mentioned that the congressman was against gay marriage and asked if he was against gay driving. The congressman responded by saying that he thinks every American should have the right to drive. (Even though driving is a privilege and not a right, unlike marriage, which could be argued is a part of Americans’ right to pursue happiness.) Colbert responded by saying that he doesn’t want homosexuals “gaying up the roads”.
The guy just kind of stared uncomfortably. But it’s not restricted to conservatives. Anyone who goes on the show gets an earful of either their own bullshit or roasted at the hands of one of the best comedic interviewers to come along in a decade. In any case, the man’s got balls, just like he promised when he was first plugging his show back in November. Colbert doesn’t realize it, but he nailed Bush’s robes to the floor. And the Emperor walked off with no clothes.