Colbert is the fool in "King Lear"

[villager]

It just hit me watching the videos for the first time.

And I fully await the storm scene.

[corkhead]

1. Let's hope it ends the same way

:evilgrin:

[eleny]

2. Firsdt they ignore you....

Before you win it's :nuke:

[Shakespeare]

3. I had that thought yesterday, too.

He's in the great tradition of Shakespeare's wise clowns (my favorite is Feste), and that's some mighty fine lineage from which to hail.

[villager]

12. Feste's pretty great, too. Touchstone, anyone?

n/t

[tabasco]

4. True!

The fool is the only one with the courage to speak the truth to the king!

[villager]

34. and the courtiers can't stand it!

viz. the mainstream press, etc.

[Twillig]

5. Yeah, but the 'king' is more sinning than sinned against

in this version. :-)

[foo_bar]

6. is the press Cordelia?

CORDELIA
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty
According to my bond; nor more nor less.

[jsamuel]

8. no way, Cordelia was too good to be the press

Cordelia always told the truth... Although I could see Judy Miller et al. being the sisters that kissed up to Lear like crazy... but I don't see Bush as Lear either...

[foo_bar]

10. the "goodness" is more like tragic co-dependency

Cordelia: Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, loved me. I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters husbands if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.

Lear: But goes thy heart with this?

[Twillig]

11. Wha?

She basically says I'll love you like my father, not my husband. Nothing more.

That's how I see Cordelia. Regan and Goneril are the ones off their rocker and ass-kissing.

[foo_bar]

22. “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent”

Colbert is part of "the media", and Cordelia is not Cinderella. But then * isn't Lear, so "Very like a whale."

[bluerum]

35. The press - one of the deluded daughters fawning at his knee.

[villager]

39. may the press is the "blinded" character...

n/t

[jsamuel]

7. maybe, but Bush isn't Lear

Lear was stupid, but not in the same evil way Bush is.

[villager]

13. true, though both, of course were --are -- "blind"

Only, Lear finally "got it" -- albeit too late -- at the end.

Li'l Bush never will.

[oasis]

18. The American people are Lear.

They were lied to but chose to remain in ignorance/denial until all hell broke loose.

[villager]

21. yes...

n/t

[Lisa]

28. unless you spell it "Leer", perhaps? (n/t)

[bluerum]

36. different circumstances but similar arrogance and grandiosity.

[otohara]

9. Watch it a Couple of Times

I've watched 4 times, each time I'm amazed at his delivery. It was very Shakespearean in delivery. Each time I pick up more on the message and it was "balls-o-lishish" quoting Jon Stewart.

[SoCalDem]

14. Silly Goose!

Freepers read Guns & Ammo & Focus on Everyone's Family....not Shakespeare:P

[villager]

15. well, Shakespeare was no doubt a commie Englishman

and if you tell me he lived before there were commies, well, that's just something you read in a... book

[SoCalDem]

16. My GUT told me...

Facts are for "loosers"

[villager]

facts are biased!

n/t

[htuttle]

24. That's a known fact!

[Jack Rabbit]

17. Villager, I've read King Lear

King Lear is a great favorite of mine. And Villager, His Imperial Incompetency is no King Lear.

Hegel says somewhere that that great historic facts and personages recur twice. He forgot to add: "Once as tragedy, and again as farce."
-- Karl Marx, The 18 Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Nixon may had enough going for himself that his fall could look Shakespearean, but Bush is not a tragic figure. If he resembles any of Shakespeare's great characters, then one might think of him as Falstaff, but with considerably less wit. Falstaff is a liar and a cheat. He betrays every confidence imaginable. He takes public funds to raise soldiers, drinks it away and recruits old men and reprobates. He lives like a king in the Boar's Head Tavern and runs up a large bill that remains unpaid. He knocks up a prostitute and leaves her to be dragged off to prison.

In the end, his friend and youthful partner in crime, Prince Hal, is crowned King Henry V. The new King lets his old comrade have it with both barrels:

I know thee not, old man: fall to thy prayers;
How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!
I have long dream'd of such a kind of man,
So surfeit-swell'd, so old and so profane;
But, being awaked, I do despise my dream.
Make less thy body hence, and more thy grace;
Leave gormandizing; know the grave doth gape
For thee thrice wider than for other men.
Reply not to me with a fool-born jest:
Presume not that I am the thing I was;
For God doth know, so shall the world perceive,
That I have turn'd away my former self;
So will I those that kept me company.
When thou dost hear I am as I have been,
Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,
The tutor and the feeder of my riots:
Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,
As I have done the rest of my misleaders,
Not to come near our person by ten mile.
For competence of life I will allow you,
That lack of means enforce you not to evil:
And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,
We will, according to your strengths and qualities,
Give you advancement. Be it your charge, my lord,
To see perform'd the tenor of our word.
Set on.
--Henry IV, Part 2, 5.5.48-73

[villager]

19. a thoughtful reply, Jack Rabbit!

No, Bush is more like the petty duke that blinds Gloucester, for his own advancement.

As for Colbert, I just meant in the way he spoke truth to power...

[Jack Rabbit]

25. I agree that the Fool was Colbert's part

The role of the Fool in the courts of European Kings was to speak truth to power, as long as he was entertaining in the process. On that line did Shakespeare create Lear's Fool. In the following scene, Kent has encountered Lear and the Fool on a heath in the middle of a storm.

Kent. Who's there?
Fool. Marry, here's grace and a cod-piece; that's a wise man and a fool.
--King Lear, 3.2.39-40

In modern parlance, the Fool just called the King a prick.

[Guaranteed]

20. It's a little like Hamlet, too.

My personal favorite story of all time. :)

[Shakespeare]

30. ooohhh...NICE comparison to the dumb show!

Now that's one I hadn't thought of, but I think it's actually more applicable than the fool.

[Guaranteed]

31. Well, honestly, just about everything is "a little like Hamlet."

Because, really, Hamlet covers just about everything. Even the meaning of life- probably that, more than anything.

[Shakespeare]

32. heeheeeeeee...true...

However, I still say the comparison to the dumb show is outstanding ("Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king") :thumbsup:

[Guaranteed]

33. Bingo.

The confrontation with the horrible truth.

[Taverner]

23. No...he is Kyoami to Bush's Lord Hidetora Ichimonji

[Ron Green]

26. "Where are the weapons, Nuncle? The ones of mass destruction?"

[Jack Rabbit]

27. !!

:thumbsup:

[villager]

29. Cry "Nuncle," indeed!

n/t

[AngryAmish]

37. Is that the one where the cruise ship is hit by the big wave and flips?

[villager]

38. yup, Shakespeare sold it "on a pitch," to the Globe

since it was such a commercial premise...