Salon (Michael Scherer): The truthiness hurts

[highplainsdem]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/05/01/colbert/

The truthiness hurts
Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping.

By Michael Scherer

May 1, 2006 | Make no mistake, Stephen Colbert is a dangerous man -- a bomb thrower, an assassin, a terrorist with boring hair and rimless glasses. It's a wonder the secret service let him so close to the president of the United States.

-snip-

Then he turned to the president of the United States, who sat tight-lipped just a few feet away. "I stand by this man. 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."

It was Colbert's crowning moment. His imitation of the quintessential GOP talking head -- Bill O'Reilly meets Scott McClellan -- uncovered the inner workings of the ever-cheapening discourse that passes for political debate. He reversed and flattened the meaning of the words he spoke. It's a tactic that the cultural critic Greil Marcus once called the "critical negation that would make it self-evident to everyone that the world is not as it seems." Colbert's jokes attacked not just Bush's policies, but the whole drama and language of American politics, the phony demonstration of strength, unity and vision. "The greatest thing about this man is he's steady," Colbert continued, in a nod to George W. Bush. "You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

It's not just that Colbert's jokes were hitting their mark. We already know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the generals hate Rumsfeld, or that Fox News lists to the right. Those cracks are old and boring. What Colbert did was expose the whole official, patriotic, right-wing, press-bashing discourse as a sham, as more "truthiness" than truth.

-snip-

Brilliant opinion piece...

[Little Star]

1. Amen. n/t

[Supersedeas]

18. and many a quiet knod to go with that amen.

[immoderate]

2. Needs one more vote.

--IMM

[indie_voter]

3. Great article. n/t

[Spazito]

4. Excellent read! Thanks for posting the link!

"So it's no wonder that those journalists at the dinner seemed so uneasy in their seats. They had put on their tuxes to rub shoulders with the president. They were looking forward to spotting Valerie Plame and "American Idol's" Ace Young at the Bloomberg party. They invited Colbert to speak for levity, not because they wanted to be criticized. As a tribe, we journalists are all, at heart, creatures of this silly conversation. We trade in talking points and consultant speak. We too often depend on empty language for our daily bread, and -- worse -- we sometimes mistake it for reality. Colbert was attacking us as well."

He is so right on!

[highplainsdem]

13. You're welcome! I was so happy to find it, after all the inane "news"

stories trying to make Colbert go away.

[Blue_Tires]

5. bloody brilliant n/t

[LeftCoast]

6. Excellent article! Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

:hi:

[shireen]

7. roses for Colbert?

wish I could do it, but I'm barely having time for sleep these days. If anyone wants to take it on, I'll chip in. Or make a donation to a charity of his choice.

[Chimichurri]

8. damn fine piece.

[biscotti]

9. Colbert

was brilliant. This is a fine review thank you for posting

[fearthem]

10. Keith Olbermann is covering this story tonight on his MSNBC TV show

[highplainsdem]

24. Unfortunately, Keith had Dana Milbank on, and Milbank predictably

took the lapdog media line that * had been funny, but Colbert wasn't.

I was disappointed that Keith didn't play a clip of what Colbert had said about the media, and then ask Milbank whether he'd minded that...

[Admiral Loinpresser]

25. I found KO's reation interesting.

Keith mumbled something after Milbank's predictable and unrealistic Party Line comments about how Colbert wasn't funny. I'll watch the second viewing and see if I can pick up KO's passing response. Milbank is a sap and a whore. Appropriateness may be debated but the quality of the humor may not be. The jokes were insightful and damned funny.

MSM reporters and pundits who could chuckle at the "earth tones" or "Invented the Internet" references in 2000 showed how little comedic value is necessary to achieve the party line smirk in their bubble world. They can dish it out, but they can't take it.

[anitar1]

27. MillBank sucks Imho. But we must not forget that these

so called journalist's work for their masters'and the masters rule.

[EVDebs]

35. Millbank saluted the General, General Electric that is...NBC subsidiary

and war materiel provider GE wouldn't like hearing that Colbert's routine could spoil their 'bottom line' war profits, now would the General ?

[sazemisery]

11. Too bad there is so much "political correctness" in DC

one more vote

[Maven]

12. Yet another K/R

[CatWoman]

14. here's another

:kick:

[wicket]

15. And yet another

:kick:

[leftchick]

16. the photo is priceless!

The Chimperor Has No Clothes and Stephen SHOUTED it to the world!

[highplainsdem]

21. I agree. The look on *'s face...

[Little Star]

34. Stephen is a true American Patriot!

So the press correspondence dinner guests can't handle the truth even when it is done in satire? Loooooooosers!!!!!!!

[Up2Late]

17. AND! Salon has a page with the FULL Video (in Quicktime) on their site!

Here's the link: <http://www.salon.com/ent/video_dog/politics/2006/04/30/colbert_press/index.html>

If you have the full version of Quicktime, you can even save a copy to your hard drive! The video is a little choppy, but it's a lot of video for one file. (33.5 MB)

What you do is go to the link above, and if you don't have a subscription to Salon, click on the box that says "Enter Salon for Free by watching this ad" or something like that, which brings up an ad that gives you an "Agree" or Disagree" choice. Just click one (I chose disagree) and you're in. That's it.

God, I hope tonight is a new show, for both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. The fun starts at 11:00pm EDT on Comedy Central.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

19. The genie...in this case, Colbert....exploded out of the bottle....

...and the NeoCons, and NeoCon fellow travelers, will never get him back in.

The full video of Colbert's superb performance will spread far and wide, and we will all benefit from it.

[shireen]

20. www.thankyoustephencolbert.org n/t

[redqueen]

22. Thanks for the link! n/t

[zippy890]

23. excellent article

:dem:

[wordpix2]

26. Colbert is getting reamed by the likes of Imus et al.---I LOVE his stuff

[anitar1]

28. Imus is so boring and trashy. He should retire. n/t

[progressivebydesign]

29. Imus? he has ZERO room to talk after his tasteless attack on Clinton

at another Corresp. dinner.. bad enuff some jerk brought paula jones to the thing, but Imus did jokes about Monica. Howze that for bad taste? Imus creeps me out... big time!

[SCDem]

39. Imus actually had Craig Kilbourne on this morning

and Craig said that he loved Colbert and thought he was very funny at the WHCD.

[Canuckistanian]

30. Very good, here's a journalist who "gets it"

And he freely admits that as a journalist, he's been mocked and eviscerated.

Whether he does anything about it is another matter.

Light hearted introspections on the use of irony is fine.

But will this episode lead to Scherer writing his own Watergate burglary piece?

[madmax]

31. Is there a trascript somewhere???

I'm hearing impaired - I'd like to read it first then watch the video. Thanks guys.

[Arugula Latte]

32. Here you go:

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=2819#more-2819

[madmax]

33. You are a love!!

Thanks so much. :hug:

[Arugula Latte]

38. Aw, shucks ...

:blush:

[Pharaoh]

36. WOO HOO!

Colbert Rocks!

[Pharaoh]

37. And now for my 1000th post

Ta DA!!!!!!!