Remember how HARD the audience laughed when * couldn't find the WMDs?

[Gabi Hayes]

remember that shameful performance, was it last year?

the audience of craven asskissers HOWLED with delight, IIRC.

anybody have a clip of that dinner, and the audience's reaction to that.

I remember very clearly that I was more outraged at the audience than at the very offensive display of callousness to the THOUSANDS of DEATHS that this war criminal has caused, and the effrontery displayed in making LIGHT of it!

compare that reaction to the almost complete silence with which they greeted Colbert's stunning rebuke to both the Fasicist regime (rearranging deck chairs on the HINDENBURG!), AND the media handmaidens who've made all this necessary

think back, and remember how well the idiot's performance was received last year, only to be topped this time by an embarrassing presentation that consisted entirely of making light of his own idiocy and incompetence. the most powerful man in the history of the fricking WORLD, and the best they can come up with is a paean to his witlessness.

two presidents....half a brain



and please read this article, that clearly shows the M$M mindset when it comes to protecting the IMAGE of their dear leader
http://www.therearguard.pdx.edu/issues/Vol6_iss7_april04/wmd%20jokes.htm

[Gabi Hayes]

1. the more I think about this the MADDER I'm getting....

can I have a drink?

[WiseButAngrySara]

2. I was crying in horror and anger. It was ghastly. ....n/t

[Eric J in MN]

3. It was March 2004. About 2 years ago.

Radio and Television News Correspondents Association.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4608166

[Eric J in MN]

4. The audience laughed at Colbert, too (nt)

nt

[WiseButAngrySara]

8. They were subdued because they were AFRAID to laugh. That's

fascism, tyranny, call it what you will. Everytime the camera caught someone laughing too hard, they immediately stopped, almost sheepishly. Of course he didn't spare the press either.

How can you have a free press, if they're afraid to laugh and afraid to speak truth to power? It is too richly ironic, and a very sad commentary on our times, that truth in reporting is found on comedy shows and the internet (while it lasts.)

[Gabi Hayes]

10. when? I must've missed it

I taped the rerun. I don't remember much hard yocks during the original, but I was mostly typing

he got NOWHERE near the laughs the embarrassing dueling chimps got

[BuyingThyme]

5. You hit it Gabi. That's the lens through which this should be viewed.

[pretzel4gore]

6. the 68 percent 'approval' rate of what bush 'don't do'

the converse of his 32 percent supporters, haha! the way Colbert threw the mediawhores goofy logic back in their faces was magical....i hope there's a prison in them bastards' futures!

[Gabi Hayes]

7. you HAVE to read this article, which lists LOTS of M$M apologists for Bush

http://www.therearguard.pdx.edu/issues/Vol6_iss7_april04/wmd%20jokes.htm

When presidents appear appear at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, it's traditional for them to tell a few jokes. But when George W. Bush appeared last week (3/24/04), he made a series of "jokes" about the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that had been the central justification of his invasion of Iraq. Part of Bush's routine included slides showing administration officials looking around the White House for something. "Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere," Bush explained while showing one of the images, which elicited laughter from the audience of politicians and media figures.

Interestingly, Bush's comments were hardly controversial to the Beltway press corps, which seemed to write it off as harmlessly "self-deprecating" humor. Many of the press accounts the next day did not raise questions about Bush's humorous reference to his administration's bogus rationale for a war that has cost thousands of lives-- American and Iraqi. For the media, such humor was expected. "Well, every night we hear people on TV telling jokes about President Bush, but last night it was the president's turn to tell jokes about the president," CBS anchor Julie Chen explained (3/25/04), adding that "at least someone's making jokes about it other than the late-night talk show hosts."

CNN's American Morning show on March 25 provided a glimpse at the gulf between the media reaction and the public response to Bush's sense of humor. After playing some clips from Bush's speech, CNN anchor Bill Hemmer mentioned that "there was a slideshow shown a little later. Maybe we'll get to that later in our broadcast. There were some good funny lines in that, too."

But once CNN aired Bush's weapons jokes, its audience saw what the anchors and correspondents missed. CNN anchor Soledad O'Brien announced that the program was getting a surprisingly negative stream of emails from viewers, and asked Hemmer what the reaction at the dinner had been.

[WiseButAngrySara]

14. I was disgusted by the reaction of the audience! Still am. And there

were reporters that covered the Iraq War who had been there, and to see some of them laughing, made me feel as is I was living in some sort of alternative universe.

[Gabi Hayes]

16. did you read that article I linked? it was SICKENING to hear the lame

defense of this disgusting performance

here's the summation:

''The problem is not that *someone* told a joke about WMD. It's that as the chief purveyor of the WMD falsehood, which resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Americans and thousands of Iraqis, it is beyond bad taste for *George W. Bush* to joke about WMD. It's the difference between a comedian making a joke about O.J. Simpson looking for Nicole Brown Simpson's "real killer," and *O.J. Simpson* making the same joke.''

[WiseButAngrySara]

29. Yes, I did. Thanks for posting. I logged back on this a.m. to get

DU's reaction 'the morning after' Colbert's brilliantly satirical performance. So far, MSNBC has shown B* entire skit with the impersonator, and they're referring to him as 'Comedian-in-Chief' and yukking it up much like they did with the WMD 'hunt.' It's revolting. So far, not a word about Colbert, so the emperor is still fully clothed for a good bit of Amurikans.

[mohinoaklawnillinois]

9. Earlier tonight when the WH Press Association shindig was

being shown live during the dinner portion C-Span showed clips from earlier dinners, but they did not include that particular "performance" from 2004.

That was the first one of these "dinners" I had ever watched and I remember how appalled I was at that performance of Chimpy. All I could think about was how anyone who had lost a loved one in Iraq at that point in time must have felt.

If someone wants to debate with me about what Steven Colbert said tonight, I'll bring up Chimpy's performance in 2004. It was totally tasteless and completely inappropriate for any President. In fact, my first phone call to the White House to complain about anything was the following morning about that "skit".

I've never watched the Colbert Report, but starting Monday night, I will...He was brilliant tonight and I hope the Bushbots in the press start to realize how clueless they really are...

[Gabi Hayes]

11. you have to read the speech to appreciate how amazing it was.

there's a transcript

I was laughing MUCH harder while reading than while watching

the closest analogy I can think of was Woody Allen's speech in Bananas, as President of San Marcos, when he gave a dinner speech in the US, to a completely silent audience

he said things like, "the chief export of our country is locusts"

the audience was filled with literal mouthbreathers

[deminks]

12. Last year was Pickle's debut.

I think it was 2004.



Nope, no WMD there.

[Gabi Hayes]

13. I found that out. thanks...did you read the article I linked?

the one about how ACTIVELY the media defended him for that WMD "joke"

the likes of Russert, Joe Klein, the CNN anchors all went to bat for him, defending it as a "humanizing" act!

Jack Cafferty said HIS emails were almost all OUTraged at the insensitivity

[deminks]

17. Excellent article.

I remember Russert defending the chimp at the time. I remember the rage we all felt at the chimp making jokes about the wmd's that he lied about anyway. I felt it was like he was admitting that it was all a lie, a lie only a sociopath could laugh at.

Do you think that is why he made Laura do the deed last year, and why he was so self depricating this time, with a little speech about the troops at the end? He is so disgusting, there are no words.

[Gabi Hayes]

20. good point, and fits perfectly the idea that he's nothing but a spineless

little COWARD, who has to have others do the dirty work for him

that thing with him and the other Bush tonight was nauseating, just disgusting, and embarrassing for me as a US citizen to have that man present himself in front of the entire WORLD as a toothless, mouthbreathing cretin. did they think that would inoculate him for the WAR CRIMES charges that should be waiting for him as soon as he leaves OUR house in disgrace?

[VolcanoJen]

26. That's right, last year Pickles talked about jerking off a horse.

Or something of the like.

They should know better than to hire Colbert for their little inside-the-beltway fiesta. Nobody to blame but themselves.

For the record, I thought he was hilarious. :-)

[Gabi Hayes]

28. he's going for the Tom Green audience

it'a HUGH!!11!!

[Gabi Hayes]

15. hate to praise the tweet, but this is from the article I linked

MSNBC's Chris Matthews also seemed appalled by the media's reaction (3/25/04): "Well, there's four or five cases where the president told a yuck about the fact he couldn't find weapons of mass destruction, and the press being supportive in their laughter. Maybe sycophantic, but they laughed."

[pa28]

18. The uncomfortable silence was the sweetest part for me.

The people who failed us so badly were forced to take their medicine. I had fun watching them choke on it.

:rofl:

Cheers to Scalia though. He was man enough to laugh.

[tabasco]

19. Bush's sketch was the tipping point for my (former) republican cousin.

Bush joking about looking for the WMDs pushed my cousin out of the republican party.

He calls himself an independent now, but this is a lifelong republican we're talking about.

[jdelullo]

21. That time cover shoud be an avatar image

[Garbo 2004]

22. That was despicable IMO. But the media was in on the "joke" re: WMD from

the beginning, as they dutifully reported the WH propaganda leading up to the war and downplayed or did not report contrary views or facts that did not support the WH fear and war mongering.

It was always an "inside the beltway" thing: the media knew what the WH was doing in the lead up to war and dutifully shoveled the propaganda out there. knowing that things weren't as the WH was saying. Their laughter at the correspondents' dinner was the laughter of a shared "joke" in which they were complicit and actively abetted the WH in perpetrating its scam on the American people.

Remember when the corporate media responded with a yawn to the Downing Street Minutes? And when asked why they weren't covering the story was it Newsweek, among others, that said, oh well we knew that years ago, this really isn't news that the WH rigged the case, reasons for war. The media knew that at the time it was happening. They knew it was all a fraud. They just didn't happen to mention that to the American public at the time. And didn't much want to talk about it or their culpability afterwards either.

So I can understand why many of them laughed along with Bush's despicable video, they were in on the "joke" from the beginning. That people died and were maimed as a result, well one doubts that's what they chat about on the DC cocktail circuit with their friends and associates. Media at that level is an arm of the ruling class. It's a symbiotic relationship. And I think we caught a glimpse of that when the media laughed at Bush's WH hunt for WMD. And then got all defensive when seen by an appalled public that wasn't in on the "joke."

[Gabi Hayes]

23. mole sauce! man, now I'm really REALLY angry! never thought of it

like that, but you've hit it hard there.

they were in on it from the beginning, cause it's obvious that they never cared about telling the real story.

they KNEW, and they didn't tell the sheeple, who were led to the metaphorical slaughter, along with the Iraqis, and our own soldiers, who were led to a REAL slaughter

[Gabi Hayes]

24. here's a picture from that fiasco, thanks to another DUer

[rucky]

25. Think Dean Scream, Wellstone Funeral

and more "fun with audio".

I predict we will get reports of a more responsive audience than the clips will suggest.

[Gabi Hayes]

27. not from the M$M, though

they're less than worthless

THEY're more responsible for the pugs than the pugs

pugs are like sharks or scorpions. they do what they do because it's genetically imprinted. they can't help it

the media made a CHOICE to represent reality as unreality

they're responsible for making Orwell's horrific world a nascent reality

[Gabi Hayes]

30. rerun of Steph Miller on Sirius is giving Colbert the kudos he deserves

refresh on the WMD/dueling chimps/Milbank interpretation of "funny"

remember humor expert Milbank's idea of ''funny'' is to wear outrageous HATS when he appears on TV, or making snarky, MENDACIOUS, remarks about hearings people like Conyers hold when they're trying to salvage what's left of our democracy

now, that's FUNNY, you slimy little prick

[leftchick]

31. It was 2004 and I cried!

I was so outraged and I thought WTF is WRONG with these people? Obviously it is still WRONG with them.

:(

[Gabi Hayes]

32. I knew I shouldn't have gotten online tonight. I'm getting FURious again

about the fricking media. WTF is up with Olbermann, of all people? why on earth did he choose Dana MILbank, of all people, to discuss Colbert? Milbank is one of the most shameless asskisser of all, and his idea of humor is to come on TV wearing funny HATS! what a great judge of yoks, especially when he and his were the ones being skewered

what an ASSHOLE!

[Gabi Hayes]

33. symbolman's better thread on basically same topic, right....here!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1085389