Personally, I liked the first 2/3 and wasn't too into the "audition tape" part. Some of it was funny but, like many a modern SNL skit, it just went on too long. My favorite part of the speech, besides Scalia's reaction to the joke about him (props to the guy for having a sense of humor) was the glacier joke. I mean, that's pretty damned funny and spot on. Not that most of the other stuff wasn't, but for some reason the glacier joke struck me. Maybe because at the time I watched it (two nights ago) it had been in the 40s and raining in Boston for two days, and was scheduled to continue doing so for the next 24 hours in May.
My budding environmentalism aside, I thought that most of what he said was so funny because it was so spot on. I also think that's the reason most of the people in the room weren't laughing (except Scalia and Laurence Fishburne). Good for Colbert, though. It's not like criticism of the regime is a particularly popular thing anyway, let alone standing in a room with members of the regime (and the "liberal" media that's quite clearly not so liberal as Fox News would like us to think). No one likes to be criticized, particularly when you think you're above criticism in certain matters.
The best part, though, is the insane reaction in the media and "blogosphere" (I hate that word). The number one emailed article in the New York Times is about Colbert. Well, it was yesterday. I guess it's third today. Still, that's pretty interesting. Is anyone listening to what members of the media are saying about it? They're the ones that were mocked! I thought Colbert was effing funny. But I'm not a journalist or a member of the current administration. In fact, I'm pretty much a detractor of both. Colbert's jokes were laced with truth to me, and so they were doubly funny. I can't imagine what my Republican counterpart - I'm sure I must have one somehwere - must have thought of them. Hopefully people were thinking, though. And on that note, I'll quote another blogger with smarter things to say and more people to read 'em.
My budding environmentalism aside, I thought that most of what he said was so funny because it was so spot on. I also think that's the reason most of the people in the room weren't laughing (except Scalia and Laurence Fishburne). Good for Colbert, though. It's not like criticism of the regime is a particularly popular thing anyway, let alone standing in a room with members of the regime (and the "liberal" media that's quite clearly not so liberal as Fox News would like us to think). No one likes to be criticized, particularly when you think you're above criticism in certain matters.
The best part, though, is the insane reaction in the media and "blogosphere" (I hate that word). The number one emailed article in the New York Times is about Colbert. Well, it was yesterday. I guess it's third today. Still, that's pretty interesting. Is anyone listening to what members of the media are saying about it? They're the ones that were mocked! I thought Colbert was effing funny. But I'm not a journalist or a member of the current administration. In fact, I'm pretty much a detractor of both. Colbert's jokes were laced with truth to me, and so they were doubly funny. I can't imagine what my Republican counterpart - I'm sure I must have one somehwere - must have thought of them. Hopefully people were thinking, though. And on that note, I'll quote another blogger with smarter things to say and more people to read 'em.
Evaluating this event on laugh-meter scores is absurd -- it's just one more way of marginalizing and dismissing what actually happened that night. Just for a moment, Colbert brought a heavily sheltered President Bush face to face with the outrage and revulsion that large swathes of the American public feel for him and what he has done to our country. He did so at an event in which a certain level of jovial kidding is sanctioned, but he stepped far beyond. His caricature of a right-wing media toady relied on irony, and irony rarely elicits belly laughs, but at its best, it provokes doubt and incites questions. The ultimate goal of Colbert's routine was not to make you laugh but to make you think; it aimed not to tickle but to puncture.- Scott Rosenberg's blog on SalonI'm no braniac on the nerd patrol, but that sounds about right to me.
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