Colbert Zings Bush At Correspondent’s Dinner — Bush Steamed!

Published on April 30th, 2006

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. [...] Several veterans of past dinners, who requested anonymity, said the presentation was more directed at attacking the president than in the past. Several said previous hosts, like Jay Leno, equally slammed both the White House and the press corps. (more)

You can find the video here. Also at Youtube. Best Quality Here.

42 users responded in " Colbert Zings Bush At Correspondent’s Dinner — Bush Steamed! "

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# 1 site admin said, on April 30th, 2006 at 12:20 pm

Finally some modern humor at these lame events.

You can be sure they were doing high-fives at Comedy Central. They’ll all need the extra money from better ratings to shore up the upcoming IRS audit results.

# 2 gquaglia said, on April 30th, 2006 at 12:24 pm

I thought the video at the end was hilarious.

# 3 Tom Van Hoose said, on April 30th, 2006 at 12:31 pm

I was laughing a lot harder than the audience was. Then again, I wasn’t one of his targets.

I honestly expected Colbert’s tv show to get old fast. But he’s managed to really surprise me.

# 4 NumLock said, on April 30th, 2006 at 12:44 pm

It was essentially made for the television audience, not the immediate audience.

# 5 Gary Marks said, on April 30th, 2006 at 1:05 pm

The good news about Bush being steamed is that he must have understood it — advisors didn’t have to explain it to him later. The bad news is that many of us are going to miss Stephen. He was brilliant. And thanks for the HQ link. Now I don’t regret not recording it myself.

# 6 Alex said, on April 30th, 2006 at 1:44 pm

Oh that made my day. That was awesome!

# 7 Awake said, on April 30th, 2006 at 1:51 pm

When the prsesident and the institution that he stands for has managed to lose all credibily as our current President (and all those that serve him or support him have lost), it becomes increasingly easy to tell biting truths.
Colbert is the modern equivalent if the child screaming “Look, the Emperor has no clothes!”.
Expect more of this type of strong critique, much more, since the door is now open, the threshold has been crossed. And as with the “Emperor has no clothes” parable, eyes are being opened, courage is returning, and minds are being awakened.

# 8 Greg V. said, on April 30th, 2006 at 2:09 pm

As you can tell from the article, the C&L and YouTube videos leave a chunk off the beginning. You can see the full version here: Part 1, Part 2. There’s also a transcript that includes the beginning part here.

# 9 david said, on April 30th, 2006 at 2:30 pm

I saw this on C-Span last night live. I couldn’t believe what was transpiring. It was a good whipping done under the guise of comedy. George Bush was not amused. Stephen Colbert has steel balls. He basically beat up the president in front of the entire Media. Mr. Colbert showed fearlessness in a crowd of cowards. I still can’t believe he said what he said. Bush left the stage in disgrace and embarrasment as he should for the disgraceful conduct of a President unbecoming.

# 10 JSFORBES said, on April 30th, 2006 at 3:35 pm

Stephen Colbert has the biggest balls in America, and maybe the world.

# 11 AB CD said, on April 30th, 2006 at 4:24 pm

First it was ‘you’re destroying the country’, then ‘60% of what you say is crap’, now this. You are so easily amused. No wonder they say liberals can’t do comedy and conservatives can’t do drama.

# 12 AB CD said, on April 30th, 2006 at 4:36 pm

Didn ‘t Don Imus do this to Clinton, and bomb just as badly? Just saw the video for Colbert, not very funny. He sounded a lot like Margaret Cho.

# 13 dean said, on April 30th, 2006 at 4:41 pm

I was disapointed, I thought he bombed.

# 14 joshua said, on April 30th, 2006 at 5:28 pm

A couple good lines, but I didn’t really think it was all that funny, or brave(why would you call it brave?) I don’t like Leno, but I’ve actually heard far worse and much more funny from him about Bush.
But then I guess it’s an improvement from finding punching someone out as humor.

I saw Bush as he left, he wasn’t embarrassed or defeated. Most likely he was sad at the lame attempt to belittle him. If you want to embarrass or make someone look bad, you do it with real humor, not some lamely disquised go for the jugular attack, as this was. The best comedians know this, constant humor can undermine a person far better than direct assult no matter how it’s packaged.

Bush makes himself a target to easily. After awhile the lefty’s start looking like bully’s and people stop listening to their message. They may be unhappy with Bush over the war, but most people in this country don’t like seeing their President belittled, contrary to what the Liberals think. I think Bush knows this well.

# 15 Screwballizer said, on April 30th, 2006 at 6:02 pm

I like the Steve Martin approach. Making other people look dumb is cheap. Making yourself look dumb is priceless. Having big corporations make you look dumb could mean that you are the President of the United States, selling software or are just not trying hard enough to screw something up. This is the most expensive way to go broke. Making a million dollars is fairly easy. You don’t need to be that smart. Losing it is complex and difficult. Laughter is the best medicine for social disease and we have a number of them in 2006.

Here’s proof, “people with heart disease were 40 percent less likely to laugh in a variety of situations compared to people of the same age without heart disease.”
http://www.umm.edu/features/laughter.htm

No laughs to report from Iraq and little in the way of proof of anything. That’s the way it works with deceptions and the people who advance in that direction. I can’t laugh at President Bush. I can’t see the point of searching for humor in the darkness. Making the President look dumb should be left to Fox News. That was funny. Laugh.

# 16 BgScryAnml said, on April 30th, 2006 at 6:45 pm

Contempt from a liberal toward the administration…so what’s new?

The fulcrum for going to war was bad intelligence. Not to mention Sadam wanted everyone to believe he actually had WMD’s.

Q: Under which administration was the intelligence department practically dismantled?

# 17 malren said, on April 30th, 2006 at 6:48 pm

“I can’t laugh at President Bush. I can’t see the point of searching for humor in the darkness. ”

How sad for you. What truly awful way to live.

Your choice, though. You’re the one making yourself miserable.

# 18 paralleljohnny@gmail.com said, on April 30th, 2006 at 7:14 pm

I laughed at a good bit of it; but for the most part, it wasn’t very funny. Plenty of attacks on everything. Some were great, others were just in poor taste.

I keep hearing how steamed Bush was, but its a lie. Of course the general public would love to hear that Bush threw a hissy-fit, but that wasn’t the case. Whether his appearance changed one in private or not is another thing, but in public he did not look upset.

I found the mock debate between Bush and comedian Steve Bridges impersonating Bush funnier.

# 19 Gary Marks said, on April 30th, 2006 at 7:27 pm

Well, I have to revise my opinion. I responded initially after viewing a low quality, shorter version, while still downloading the HQ version. Turns out the HQ version had a significantly longer running time with more material at the beginning. I agree with those who think he piled on too much. I still think it was good stuff, but it was paced too slowly and ran too long. I’ll give the President a few sympathy points on this one, as long as they don’t show up in the polls Let him get polling points the old fashioned way… let him earn them.

# 20 AB CD said, on April 30th, 2006 at 8:17 pm

The one time I saw his show, I thought he was funny. Apparently his jokes are funnier in the context of his show with longtime viewers better able to understand things. So this bombed more like Letterman hosting the Oscars or Conan at the Emmys.

# 21 T.C. Moore said, on April 30th, 2006 at 8:31 pm

I dunno. I only laughed a little more than the audience. I love Colbert’s show, but this was a little too blunt to be laugh-out-loud funny. Not witty or obvious enough.

Like the whole bit about the Generals still supporting Rumsfeld, “oh, wait, you’re not retired yet? Right, so you still support him.” I thought that was awesome, but I didn’t really laugh. Critiquing active duty general’s for not standing up to their civilian leadership is a complex issue. Even for smart people, if they can’t get to the joke in 3 seconds, you’re not gonna get laughs.

But the glaciers and global warming joke killed. Ce la vie.

# 22 Seth said, on April 30th, 2006 at 9:20 pm

I think it’s funny that the only people that commented about how not funny it was were also for the Bush administration. Why can’t people just laugh? Forget Iraq, elections, and which side everyone is on for just a few minute and friggin laugh! If you honestly did not find those videos partly funny then something is seriously wrong with you.

# 23 meetsy said, on April 30th, 2006 at 9:24 pm

Colbert had a good set — the audience was a dud, though. He didn’t lose them, they were listening and squirming. This is not an audience that is bored, or not “getting it”. And, Bush did react with a very definate body language when he shook Colbert’s hand…it was dismissive, and downcast. He did not look up, and his shoulders sagged. That’s where people are getting the inference that he was upset.
Colbert didn’t “bomb”, he was just playing to another audience….I agree with numlock! I thought it was about time someone spoke up and made fun of the stupidity that’s been going on.
It’s not a left or right thing……

# 24 Milo said, on April 30th, 2006 at 9:48 pm

“Reality has a well known liberal bias”.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true!

# 25 site admin said, on April 30th, 2006 at 9:58 pm

Wow..am I impressed by these comments or what? Talk about a balanced audience. 50-percent love 50-percent hate 50-percent gold.

I agree with Meetsy. In fact Colbert was slamming the prexy too hard for this group of party-goers who were just plain shocked and hoped to god their invites to these things would not be cancelled if someone saw them smiling. Colbert will not be invited back but I doubt he cares. He was definitely NOT playing to THIS audience and plowed through it. It was a bomb by situational standards, but ballsy and brilliant.

Oh, and you can be sure his Monday numbers for his own show will be through the roof!

# 26 Milo said, on April 30th, 2006 at 10:13 pm

John the hi res download appears to have a problem.

# 27 John said, on April 30th, 2006 at 11:05 pm

The funny thing is…these are real problems…yes jokes help point out the problems but instead of poking fun at them for the 1000th time…lets come up with some solutions. Constructive criticsim is the name of the game.

# 28 blank said, on April 30th, 2006 at 11:51 pm

Actually, I personally think the people here that didn’t “get it” and found it not funny are the ones gauging it from how many laughs it got.

In the culture of laugh-tracks and “filmed in front of a live audience”, we don’t know how to laugh at things that are funny without being prompted to. Since you didn’t hear much laughter in the audience, many are assuming that he bombed and that he wasn’t funny….because if you’re not hearing the laughs, then it must not be funny, right?

Also, this is a character Colbert plays….this isn’t really Colbert himself. Watch his show some time, it’s a take off on all the right-wing talk shows like the O’Reilly Factor.

# 29 joshua said, on May 1st, 2006 at 12:53 am

#23…seth….I’m not for this administration and neither are a few of the others who panned the act.

I just finished going through my usual early morning British news….BBC and The Times of London…..neither even mentioned Colbert…zip…zro, nada. But they did mention Palme being there and the bit Bush did with the double…..they all were very surprised at how funny it was and how much the audience laughed. Both of these sources are not Bush fans.

This was not by any means a pro Bush audience, it was made up of the people who rip him a new one every day in the NYT and the Wash Post and other liberal news outlests. I think they just thought Colbert was out of line and over the top.

# 30 Beeblebrox said, on May 1st, 2006 at 1:13 am

Certainly one shouldn’t be surprised that the resident right-wingers didn’t find this funny, but I’m a little disappointed that they haven’t yet question Colbert’s patriotism! Oh well, we’ll have to leave that to the professionals I guess (from Lucianne.com):

“Steve Colbert was utterly disgusting. Even the libs didn’t laugh most of the time. He was rude, snarky and unpatriotic toward the President and First Lady.

Watching Stephen Colbert was an exercise in agony. It went on and on and on forever, generating few laughs with everyone checking their watches. Whoever said he was funny, besides Don Imus, should have watched Colbert’s non-performance tonight. It’s like he didn’t have a clue that he had bombed! Bush and his look-alike stole the show.

Bush is a master of self-deprecating humor which makes him endear himself more to the American people. Gosh, I love this guy and am so proud of him.”

Bush sure does endear himself to the American people, alright. To the tune of a 68% disapproval rating.

As Colbert said, “Reality has such a liberal bias.”

# 31 Ev said, on May 1st, 2006 at 6:32 am

Colbert showed the ugly side of Bush with comedic brilliance. Those who can’t see that humor must be part of the 32% who still “love” Bush. The correspondents at the dinner make money “covering” Bush’s utter failures, so of course they didn’t laugh. This is more evidence that an imperial presidency is being constructed. It won’t stand. America is better than the Bush administration.

# 32 paralleljohnny@gmail.com said, on May 1st, 2006 at 7:53 am

Blank, Ev, Seth,
Where did you pull that BS from? You’re starting to sound like nothing, but fast-talking-lefties.

“Those who can’t see that humor must be part of the 32% who still “love” Bush.”

That sounds strangely similar to the paraphrased saying, “Those who hate [baseball/ the Patriot Act/ wire-taps/etc], must be a terrorist.” That you would hear from some far-right wacko.

Could it be that some people didn’t find it funny not because of his attacking the admin, but because it just wasn’t very funny?

I love Colbert’s comedy and I did laugh a fair amount. But this was no comedic brilliance.

# 33 Mike said, on May 1st, 2006 at 8:09 am

It probably would have been more brave to show some class. It’s really not that shocking to see a speaker insult the President and his policies when the forum has a built-in expectation of it.

And criticisms that consist of insult and making fun but are lacking in critical analysis are mostly pointless anyway.

# 34 Adrian said, on May 1st, 2006 at 9:26 am

The unofficial Thank You Stephen Colbert site:
http://thankyoustephencolbert.org/
so many gushing comments.

# 35 Chris said, on May 1st, 2006 at 10:52 am

How in the world can you be “unpatriotic toward the president”? HE isn’t the country, the USA is the country…and I could be mistaken, but I’m fairly certain the term ‘patriot’ refers to the nation. Perhaps that statement is more evidence of what is wrong in America these days…the ‘cult of personality’ rules to the point where people have no clue anymore how things actually work.
Ugh…it’s all hopeless anyway. People just don’t care until it impacts their own self-centered little universes…the Republicans have forsaken their values and become something else entirely, and the Democrats are splintered and clueless, with some real crackpots likely to gain control of the party. Jon Stewart, Colbert and a few others stand out as ‘voices of reason’ these days…and as Stewart has pointed out, that is a bit of a sad statement on society…
Yup…doomed.

# 36 Sounds The Alarm said, on May 1st, 2006 at 11:52 am

Anything that bashes the Duh, true or false, is cool by me. I learned that from the neocons!

# 37 joshua said, on May 1st, 2006 at 1:29 pm

ev……the Imperial Presidency has been here for a long time. Time magazine wrote about in the late 60’s.

I voted for Bush….but he turned out to be false packaging. Still, he was better than the alternative.

I found a few lines that were funny in Colberts act, but basically I didn’t find it funny and I’m not in the 32% that like Bush. Good political satire is great, I just didn’t find this met that level or even got to the level of fair political satire.

Someone above me said that he was amazed that some of ones who thought it funny seem to have no humor as they demonize those who didn’t. Maybe the left needs to take a hard look at itself and get the message as to why they can’t win elections.

# 38 thomas said, on May 1st, 2006 at 6:37 pm

Most entertaining thing I have personally seen since Nixon resigned. . . too bad he couldn’t finish it up with a good pie in the face.

# 39 Me said, on May 2nd, 2006 at 4:35 am

Bush hasn’t even begun to be a fraction as bad as Kerry or Gore would have been.

# 40 david said, on May 2nd, 2006 at 5:35 am

Everyone has missed the point. It was not a comedy routine. It wasn’t meant to be funny. I didn’t laugh when I watched it– I was STUNNED! 68% (the majority) have been silenced by the media. It took just one of those in that group to voice out our grievances with the president. Sadly, I haven’t noticed any coverage of Colbert’s routine in the mainstream media. The media’s interest is ACCESS to the White House. The Bush regime has denied access to any who go against him, and he has made that clearer than day: “you are either with him, or you’re against him.” That the media didn’t cover Colbert is evidence that Bush holds power over the media even though the media had something palpable to make news about. They are afraid of pissing off the Executive because their paychecks depend on him.

A president gets a blowjob and gets impeached for lying about his personal sex life.

A president invades a country on a LIE about WMDs, kills tens of thousands of innocent women and children in collateral damage (many kides survive with blown off limbs, fire-scarred bodies, and deep hatred for America), sacrifices 2,500 U.S. soldiers for a war on terror based on a LIE of 9/11 (inside job of the most monstrous event in the history of Mankind- Hitler’s burning of the Reichstag was child’s play in comparison), consolodates power of the executive branch by infiltrating the Judicial and Congress branch of power, eavesdrops and violates the U.S. Constitution, etc…. and he still is in office planning another war on Iran. If you support Bush then you are either ignorant or you are a murderer. Where do you think he is going to get soldiers for a war on Iran. An Iranian war is a given; Bush has said it. Who is going to enlist? Of course, no one. That is why Bush will have to conscript, force our young American boys to die for him. What’s the difference between Osama bin Laden having his boys strap bombs around their chest and having them die for his cause and Bush having our kids die for him for his cause? They are both terrorists.

Suckers you who believe still in 9/11. Bush hasn’t caught the person “responsible” for 9/11. Where is Osama? Bush is not looking for him. When Bush did his comedy routine with his look-alike, Osama bin Laden should have been up there behind the presidential seal.

# 41 AB CD said, on May 2nd, 2006 at 6:39 am

I guess Bin Laden’s videotapes explaining why he did it are a fake too?

# 42 AB CD said, on May 2nd, 2006 at 6:40 am

>A president gets a blowjob and gets impeached for lying about his personal sex life.

It was for lying in a sexual harassment suit, (technically ina grand jury investigating this)

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