Right Wingers + Comedy Don't Mix?
Hopefully you've seen it by now, but if not: Colbert Roasts Bush (heck, he slays Bush!)
I shouldn't be surprised that dittoheads are convincing themselves that Stephen Colbert "bombed" at the White House Correspondents Dinner. After all, Dennis Miller and Ann Coulter set the bar for right-wing comedy. (A couple of local blogs easily spring that bar.) The saddest comment I've seen about Colbert comes from Ol' Man Hinderocket:
The big news story was that the featured comedian, someone named Steve [sic] Colbert, apparently bombed. He did a virulently anti-Bush routine that got few laughs. [...] I wasn't surprised by this, inasmuch as I'd never heard of Steve Colbert, and it's been a long time since I heard a political humorist who was very funny. Comedians, in general, don't seem very funny to me nowadays. For that matter, neither does politics. If you want to take a break from current events and remind yourself what it was like when comedians had no agenda other than being funny, check out this clip from the Jack Benny show on Power Line Video.
Hold your horses, grandpa. A time "when comedians had no agenda other than being funny"? Apparently Hinderaker's liberal Harvard education really didn't do much good - has he never heard of Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain? Has he never seen a political cartoon before 1950? You see, Stephen Colbert and the Daily Show are standing on the very tall, old shoulders of American political satire. Satire harnesses comedy to expose foolishness in all its guises. If Bush and some of the press corps weren't smiling by the end of Colbert's fiery roast, it's because they were stinging from the barbs of brilliant political satire.
posted by Chuck Olsen @ 11:01 PM |
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8 Comments:
Aw, them ripple-jawed right-wingers have just been stewing ever since their house comedian Don Imus bombed at the 1996 White House Correspondents' Dinner.
I'm racking my brains trying to think of a right-wing comedian who's actually funny. P.J. O'Rourke often makes me laugh out loud. W.C. Fields is one of my favorite comedians ever, and he certainly wasn't liberal, but I guess there wasn't much of an "agenda" in his act. Chris Rock is one of the funniest stand-ups ever, and he's on the record as saying "I got some things I'm conservative about, and some things I'm liberal about".
Slightly off-topic, but besides Wayne Stayskal who are the funny right-wing editorial cartoonists? (And Stayskal's only funny -- mildly funny -- when he's not pimping the Bush administration's daffy agenda, e.g. this and this.)
I should say that when I interviewed the Powerliners a coupla of years ago, found they were genuinely not familiar with the Daily Show but were huge fans of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Go figure.
I read an article this AM about how ABC invited Plame and Wilson.
How was that appropriate?
Clooney was guest, Why?
Reuters was giving out "Cheney Shots" and after all this, people are supposed to believe that MSM has no agenda.
-Censored
Censored...your tinfoil hat's reception is broken. Who invited the Generals? And Fox News ins't mainstream? Please. The so-called MSM is shallow, market-driven and inaccurate. It's agenda is itself.
We pity the right as we pity stray, urine-soaked dogs so let me do them a favor and name two conservative humorists, just to make them feel a little better:
The aforementioned PJ O'Rourke.
Standup comic Larry Miller.
You're welcome.
...who are the funny right-wing editorial cartoonists?
Mark, you should check out Michael Ramirez, late of the LA Times.
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/
Um, am I the only liberal who didn't think Colbert was very funny?
I love the show, but this didn't do it for me.
At the recent Washington Correspondents' Dinner, master comedian Stephen Colbert performed magnificently. With the rapier of wit and the mace of truth, he respectively skewered and censured the presidency of "dum'ass botch".
Talk about wonderful lagniappe! Mr Colbert made that nincompoop's lap dogs in our national conventional media run for cover with their tail between their legs. And that's not all our man accomplished.
Tucked away in his address to the dinner's flabbergasted attendees, like a ticking time bomb, there was an "easter egg", which we had absolutely . . . here "we" is a polite nod . . . NO right to expect. Like the Easter Bunny in a mischievous mood, Mr Colbert camouflaged a bon mot, so profound as to approach philosophical.
oh, before I reveal Mr Colbert's casual accomplishment, I should like to preface with a caveat. The appropriate interpretation of that remark requires sagacity an-- . . .
oh, alright (!) already, I'll admit it. The above text is meant to serve as "bait" for the dear Reader's curiosity. Yes, I would like people to visit my blog. And why not?! The average visitor is bound to find one or two startling insights. What's more, it's a good bet that more than a few visitors will discover that I evoke with the written word thought, more felt than comprehended.
toodles
...../
.he who is known as sefton
http://hewhoisknownassefton.blogspot.com/2006/04/rehabilitation-of-and-by-and-for-right.html
. . . oh, yeah, I should add that the full title for that post is "rehabilitation of and by and for the right wing" .
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