All Kidding Aside
By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Monday, May 1, 2006; 2:21 PM
President Bush on Saturday night had the audience at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in stitches. With doppelganger comedian Steve Bridges alongside -- playing his inner self -- Bush poked gentle fun of his own mangling of the English language, his belligerence and his feelings about the media.
Then Comedy Central satirist Stephen Colbert ripped those stitches out.
Colbert was merciless, reserving his most potent zingers for the people in spitting distance: The president who took the nation to war on false pretenses and the press corps that let him do it.
The boozy bonhomie of the annual event is intended to serve as a balm for the often tense relationship between the White House and the reporters who cover it.
Bush largely delivered on his side of the bargain. Colbert delivered something else entirely.
From the Bush part of the evening, Bridges (as Bush): "Here I am at another one of these dang press dinners. Could be home asleep, little Barney curled up at my feet. But noooo, I gotta pretend I like being here. The media really ticks me off, the way they try to embarrass me by not editing what I say. . . . "
Bush: "I am absolutely delighted to be here, as is Laura."
Bridges: "She's hot. Muy caliente ."
Bridges on diplomacy: "Some of my critics in the international community call me arrogant. I will not even honor them with a response. Screw 'em."
I haven't been able to find a complete transcript of the Bush/Bridges talk. ABC News has some excerpts; here's more from the Newsbusters blog. Here's the complete video from ABC news. The Bush duo was rip-roaringly funny -- until the end of the performance, when the real president added a brief postscript.
"As most of my predecessors have known, it's really important to be able to laugh in this job and I thank you for giving us the chance to laugh tonight. I got one more thing I want to share with you that's on my mind, something that's never far from my mind: God bless our troops, God bless the cause of freedom and God bless America. Thank you."
It was a sudden, bracing reminder that the nation is at war. And, as it turned out, it was a fitting segue way into Colbert's performance
Colbert stayed in character as the bombastic, over-the-top, right-wing cable TV host he plays on the Colbert Report.
"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. . . .
"The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday, that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change, this man's beliefs never will. And as excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. . . .
"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. Put them 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."
Daily Kos blogger Frederick seems to have the most extensive transcript of Colbert's talk. Video of Colbert is widely available, for instance at for instance at Crooks and Liars and YouTube.
C-SPAN has video of the entire event, starting with Helen Thomas's sashay down the red carpet.
The Coverage
So was the biggest news of the night that Bush so effectively and humorously poked fun at himself? Or that a captive president -- and, to a lesser degree, the press corps -- had so sit and watch as they were subjected to devastating, vitriolic satire?
Possibly because they themselves were targets, most reporters chose to downplay the Colbert part of the evening.
Elisabeth Bumiller writes in the New York Times with some of her favorite bits: "Mr. Bush: 'I'm sorry that Vice President Cheney couldn't be here tonight. I agree with the press that Dick was a little late reporting that hunting episode down in Texas. In fact, I didn't know a thing about it till I saw him on "America's Most Wanted." '
"Mr. Bridges: 'You reporters would go nuts if you knew the full story. He was drunk as a skunk! On one beer! Light beer! Oh, people were duckin' and divin' for cover. I wish I'd been there. I saw him coming down the hall the other day, I looked at him and said, "Don't shoot!" '
"White House officials and Mr. Bridges said the double stand-up was the idea of the president, who last year ceded his spot on the program to his wife and in previous years relied on slide shows as visual props for his routines. As the 2,500-plus guests at the annual event know, by tradition the president is supposed to make fun of himself in an effort to establish his regular-guy credentials and ingratiate himself with the press."
Bumiller doesn't even mention Colbert at all.
Not Laughing
Editor & Publisher notes: "A blistering comedy 'tribute' to President Bush by Comedy Central's faux talk show host Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night left George and Laura Bush unsmiling at its close. . . .
"Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, 'and reality has a well-known liberal bias.' . . .
"Colbert closed his routine with a video fantasy where he gets to be White House Press Secretary, complete with a special 'Gannon' button on his podium. By the end, he had to run from Helen Thomas and her questions about why the U.S. really invaded Iraq and killed all those people.
"As Colbert walked from the podium, when it was over, the president and First Lady gave him quick nods, unsmiling, and handshakes, and left immediately."
Here's what CNN's Ed Henry reported: "Now, the president ended his remarks by -- his official remarks by saying that it's really important to laugh in this job. That's probably more true than ever, now that he's so low in the polls. But I have to tell you, near the end of Stephen Colbert's routine, the president didn't really seem to be laughing. He actually seemed to be a little bit annoyed at some of the pokes from Stephen Colbert, it went on for a bit."
The View From the Blogs
Blogger Peter Daou looks at the mainstream media coverage and finds: "Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized while Bush is treated as light-hearted, humble, and funny. Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. The story could just as well have been Bush and Laura's discomfort and the crowd's semi-hostile reaction to Colbert's razor-sharp barbs. In fact, I would guess that from the perspective of newsworthiness and public interest, Bush-the-playful-president is far less compelling than a comedy sketch gone awry, a pissed-off prez, and a shell-shocked audience."
Blogger Billmon writes: "Colbert used satire the way it's used in more openly authoritarian societies: as a political weapon, a device for raising issues that can't be addressed directly. He dragged out all the unmentionables -- the Iraq lies, the secret prisons, the illegal spying, the neutered stupidity of the lapdog press -- and made it pretty clear that he wasn't really laughing at them, much less with them. It may have been comedy, but it also sounded like a bill of indictment, and everybody understood the charges. . . .
"Colbert's real sin . . . was inserting a brief moment of honesty into an event based upon a lie -- one considered socially necessary by the political powers that be, but still, a lie."
Video Dog writes in Salon: "The real sign of Stephen Colbert's success at the White House Correspondents' Dinner wasn't his jokes -- which, from beginning to end, were spot-on . . . from Bush's handling of the war ('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.'), his low-30s approval rating ('I ask you this, does that not also logically mean that 68 percent approve of the job he's not doing?'), to sidelong whacks at John McCain, Fox News and Donald Rumsfeld, among others. And no, it wasn't the grim-looking handshake he received from the President or the icy glare he received from Laura Bush that let us know that he hit his targets. . . .
"The proof of his accuracy lies in how badly the . . . Washington press corps reacted. After all, this wasn't the usual baby-soft slapstick they usually get at the correspondents' dinner . . . [F]or the most part the press sat on their hands -- while just moments before, they were laughing uproariously at President Bush's incredibly lame skit with a Bush impressionist. That was Colbert's real feat: Showing us the real Washington media world, where everyone worries so much about offending someone, anyone , that the least bit of frank talk turns them into obedient little church mice."
The Moderate Voice has an extensive roundup of blogger response, including several conservatives.
Blogger Ed Morrissey , for instance, writes: "There were two problems with Colbert's act. The first is that it wasn't funny, and the second was that it didn't keep with the spirit of the evening. The Correspondents Dinner prides itself on making the evening a safe venue for all, and the humor is supposed to stay self-deprecating. Attacking one's opponents in this forum is considered bad manners. Colbert has no grasp of his audience or the event, and he paid the price for it. And that price was painful indeed."
