-Upton Sinclair
I just watched the full video of Stephen Colbert's masterful satire in front of the White House Correspondents Dinner and I'm just in awe in so many ways.
Quicktime
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"Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. But guys like us; we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking in 'reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias.
It is the best political satire I've ever seen or think I will see in my lifetime. That's because I hope for the rest of my life that no period in politics will be this insane and this scary to make a political satirist this necessary.
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.
I'm hopeful that there will never again be such a perfect storm of an unpopular President in such a huge bubble supported by an aiding and abetting apologist media who urge calm and claim that nothing is more wrong than usual. I'm hopeful that never again will there be such fear in the country about speaking out even against the world's most obvious wrongs or a "representation" of us in Washington that blocks any attempts to make people abide by the rule of law. Someday there will not be a Shakespearian level of hubris, ego, and deliberately galling behavior. Until that day, Stephen Colbert is the most important man to the liberally-biased(c) reality-based community who dared say the emperor had no clothes.
FOR TWENTY MINUTES IN FRONT OF HIM!
And boy was he pissed.
I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
The White House Correspondents Dinner is a traditional deal they have where they bring in a good-natured comedian who does a good-natured riff on how the President sometimes stumbles when talking or how Dick Cheney's kind of quiet. Jon Stewart did it last year, heard nothing about it. One Katrina, One NSA wiretap scandal, One Harriet Meiers, One Sam Alito, One Secret CIA Prison scandal, One indictment of Scooter Libby, One non-sworn in senate subcommittee meeting with oil execs, One extra dollar per gallon of gas, three more grand jury appearances by Karl Rove, 150 signing statements and 1,000 more dead soldiers and the mood has changed, and some day the media will get around to report it. Until then, as in generations past, it's the job of satirists to pull back the curtain.
But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.
It's a perfect storm of fucked up politics, massive denial that anything's wrong by a complicit media and a populace that's just tired of knowing how wrong things are and more tired of told it's business as usual. You could imagine being in Stephen's place, and depsite the depth and breadth of the administrations crimes, giving them a little bit of a pass, staying on the safe side, keeping it to the good natured ribbing, like the act from Branson, Missouri, that preceded him, because it's true, sometimes the President does go on vacation, haha, people are dead.
But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. 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!
The audience did not know what to think, that weird combination of knowing he's right, but knowing you can't agree by laughing, or maybe disagreeing with him and being angry. Or perhaps as Janeane Garofalo theorized, being invested so much in believing in Bush for so long that they last thing they'll do is stop supporting him because what does that say about them and what they fought so hard to support for the last six years?
The whole speech was just so fucking good, so political, so satiric, so of this time. I think we've been witness to truly important political comedy. Satire in the grand tradition of important satire, in the face of the satired, and so razor sharp that a defense by the satired is almost impossible without making it look like the satirist is correct. They only defense they could have that would make them look the best is silence. Which makes Stephen win as well. Perfect execution. Fucking top notch. Proud to be a comedian today. So fucking good. Thank you Stephen.
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