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 Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”
He attacked those in the press who claim that the shake-up at the White House was merely re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. “This administration is soaring, not sinking,” he said. “If anything, they are re-arranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”
1 comment:
The Colbert jokes are funny... to people who agree with their premises. This is true of any art: it generally can connect only with the people who buy its underlying premise.
Colbert's joke about "reality has a liberal bias" is certainly funny to people who believe the underlying premise that liberal policies create a better world. But the same joke would be equally funny to those of use with the opposite view, if it read, "reality has a conservative bias." That is the trouble with, and challange of, political humor. The fraction of us who agree that clever cell phone ringers are abominable is larger than the fraction of us who agree that Bush's tax cuts represent "tax cuts for the rich that harm the middle class." Thus a comedian can generally reach a larger audience by avoiding politics, since we disagree with much of it.
Artists, though, can change people's minds, especially on subjects where they currently have no passionate view. But even there, it is far easier to convince somebody to be annoyed with Paul's pink living room wall, or Nadir's homepage music blast, than to be annoyed with calls for school vouchers or a flat tax.
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