NYT:After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive (Colbert)

[cal04]

After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive With the Sound of Colbert Chatter
Mark Smith, a reporter for The Associated Press who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges that he had not seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual, black-tie dinner on Saturday night. But he says he knew enough about Mr. Colbert — "He not only skewers politicians, he skewers those of us in the media" — to expect that he would cause some good-natured discomfort among the 2,600 guests, many of them politicians and reporters.

What Mr. Smith did not anticipate, he said, was that Mr. Colbert's nearly 20-minute address would become one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere. Mr. Colbert delivered his remarks in character as the Bill O'Reillyesque commentator he plays on "The Colbert Report," although this time his principal foil, President Bush, was just a few feet away. "There was nothing he said where I would have leapt up to say, 'Stop,' " said Mr. Smith, who introduced Mr. Colbert and sat near him on the dais. "I thought he was very funny," Mr. Smith added, though there was hardly consensus on that point yesterday.

At issue was a heavily nuanced, often ironic performance by Mr. Colbert, who got in many licks at the president — on the invasion of Iraq, on the administration's penchant for secrecy, on domestic eavesdropping — with lines that sounded supportive of Mr. Bush but were quickly revealed to be anything but. And all this after Mr. Colbert tried, at the outset, to soften up the president by mocking his intelligence, saying that he and Mr. Bush were "not so different," by which he meant, he explained, "we're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol."

"Now I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating," Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. "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."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html?hp&ex=1146628800&en=bbdf71b100b0926d&ei=5094&partner=homepage

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http://www.nytimes.com/ Stephen Colbert's address at the White House correspondents' dinner has become one of the most hotly debated topics in the blogosphere.

[Cha]

1. This guy can congratulate

himself on being TOTALLY CLUELESS..I MEAN TOTALLY!

"I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan, a huge Bush detractor, and I think the White House press corps has been out to lunch for much of the last five years," Noam Scheiber wrote by way of introduction on the New Republic's Web site. But a few lines later he said: "I laughed out loud maybe twice during Colbert's entire 20-odd minute routine. Colbert's problem, blogosphere conspiracy theories notwithstanding, is that he just wasn't very entertaining."

:wtf: The truth is very serious business when you're dealing with bush..noam.

[tridim]

5. Wait, now laughter is a "blogosphere conspiracy theory"?

That's just stupid. I'll choose to be entertained however I please Mr. Big Brother.

The phrase "conspiracy theory" has become the default attack every time someone exposes painful truths.

[Old and In the Way]

7. I was entertained, Noam.

I didn't laugh a lot, but I was thrilled to see Colbert lay out the brutal reality of this boyking's misadministration. People will be talking about Colbert's performance a decade from now, while Noam's word will have evaporated into the virtual ether. It was a great moment in broadcasting, even if there was no laugh track accompanying it.

[linazelle]

2. Looks like somebody's feeling are hurt in the lower left corner....

:rofl:

[Change has come]

3. Front page of the NYT

very nice to see. :thumbsup:

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

4. This is just another strange article that leaves more unsaid

than said. It conveniently leaves out the scathing commentary and umbrage that Colbert reserved for the media.

[Ms. Clio]

6. I love how the story has become Colbert and the blogosphere, too

Just keep spelling his name right, boyz.