Colbert Calls an Audible
Stephen Colbert is a big liberal but he has some interesting comedic insights into the time he was the comedy relief at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner and hoopla.
From James Warren of the Atlantic.
Colbert disclosed that he did substantial self-editing upon looking at the president and discerning that he wasn’t ecstatic. He had planned to play off Medal of Freedom awards Bush had given former CIA Director George (“It’s a slam dunk”) Tenet and former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer; joshing about how Bush was clearly giving awards to everybody in sight.
“‘But nobody gives this man an award,’” Colbert recalled as the thrust of the riff he scrapped. “‘That ends tonight. I’m going to give the highest honor I can give….a certificate of presidency.’”
It would be akin to “something you get from The Learning Annex for taking a course. ‘I, Stephen Colbert, acknowledge…’” Colbert looked at Bush and said to himself, “I’m going nowhere near this.”
When the dinner was over, “I don’t think I’m dying. I go to sit down and nobody’s meeting my eye. Only [the late journalist-turned-White House spokesman] Tony Snow comes over and says I’m doing a great job.” Then Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia came his way and told him he was brilliant.
“I said, oh, s-, don’t let me like Antonin Scalia!”
Funny how it was two Republicans who congratulated him afterwards and none of his liberal friends had the guts to do it in public, but I’m sure they tweeted with him.
What bothers me the most about this article is not the article but the comments that follow. If you have time to waste, scroll through them. The thread seems to be that liberals are smarter at comedy than conservatives. I don’t think either side has a monopoly. There is probably more crude comedy on the left than the right. I liked the late George Carlin but he came across as angry and bitter as anyone on the right. Woody Allen is a typical New York liberal in love with his daughter, but his screenplays such as Hannah and Her Sisters and Crimes and Misdemeanors are great movies without a liberal ideological arc.
Still it is an interesting question to ponder. It’s an unconscious thought that I have had before and these comments have kicked it upstairs.
