Brent Kearney

You can download the C-SPAN video from this link, using a BitTorrent client. Other clips and the full text of Colbert’s monologue can be found here. If you’re interested in American politics at all, Colbert’s performance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner cannot be missed.

Colbert’s scathing satire left the President and his entourage, along with the Washington press corps, as cold as the post-911 media chill. By the time his monologue finished, even the crickets in the room had stopped chirping. With the exception of a small handful of people. Those people who kept laughing must have either been outside of the Bush administration and the media, had too much wine, or were good-humoured patriots like Colbert himself. The majority, stone-faced, were either part of the 32% who support Bush — and, being the media, the metaphor of White House backwash was just all too apt — or, were just too uncomfortable at the confrontation that they dared not laugh. Thats OK for Colbert, because the rest of the world was laughing.

The monologue segued into the climax of the evening: Colbert’s “audition tape” for the job of White House Press Secretary. The whole ceremony seemed to come crashing to an abrupt end the second that the videotape stopped. The President and First Lady left in a hurry. The media ran away with their tails between their legs and their brown noses bloodied.