Okay, I need to say just a few more things about my all-time number one PB, because I can’t stop obsessively reading about him, which means I keep encountering idiots I want to sock in the nose, none of whom will ever locate this blog, but I can pretend.
To those claiming he “bombed” because he couldn’t read the room, are you fucking kidding me? An autistic snail could have read that room. I’m quite sure the full range of moods from “awkward” to “hostile” wasn’t lost on Colbert–which is exactly why I, along with half the blogosphere, can muster little commentary more trenchant than, “Balls. Big ones. Jesus.”
More on that point here. I just can’t believe there’s anyone who honestly believes he didn’t know exactly what he was doing, and didn’t walk into that room 100 percent prepared for his act to go over like a pregnant pole vaulter. I mean, for Christ’s sake, whatever you want to say about him, I don’t think anyone would dare argue he’s unintelligent–and you would have to be not only dumb as a goddamn rock but living under one to write that speech believing it’d be a crowd-pleaser. I think it’s pretty safe to assume he got it.
To those arguing that it was “inappropriate,” Plaid Adder covered that one quite thoroughly, but let me recap: Duh. Of course it’s bad form to insult your hosts, let alone rip them 40 new assholes on national television. That’s an entirely different question from whether it needed to be done, or whether this was the place and time to do it. People can disagree about the first part, but as to the second, if you believe it needed doing, then this was precisely the right place and time. The only place and time. You’ve got something important to say to a sitting president and representatives of the media, and somebody has–in a display of either colossal ignorance or kamikaze cojones–invited you to address them all in one room? You’re pretty much gonna use it or lose it. It’s not like there will be future opportunities for him to discreetly take 2,600 reporters aside and say, “You know, I have to tell you, I’m feeling awfully disappointed.”
The whole point was that propriety and convention and selfish ass-covering make the press (maybe all of us) complicit in every scary-ass thing this administration does. He didn’t adhere to those standards. That’s not misunderstanding his audience and the nature of the event–that’s providing a goddamn visual aid for what he’s talking about.
To those who think it just wasn’t funny: I won’t hazard a guess as to whether you are A) not too swift, B) hardcore conservative, C) deaf, or D) all of the above, but I’m pretty fucking sure you fall into one of those categories. If you’re absolutely sure you’re not B or C, double-check for A. Really. Unless you mean it wasn’t funny because, you know, nearly all the jokes were based on facts so stunningly fucking horrifying you haven’t been able to laugh in the last six years, in which case, fair enough.
And to those even on the left claiming the jokes were tired… please. The jokes were, by and large, clever as all hell. It’s the concepts behind them that are tired, which was, once again, the fucking point–we all know this shit, yet nobody says it to the right people’s faces. No, I don’t need to see another “Vice President Fudd” joke by a smug blogger like myself–but to stand in that room and say, like 10 seconds after you’re introduced, “Somebody shoot me in the face”? That’s new. That was my first “Holy fucking shit, he did not!” moment, which was the most delicious layer of the humor cake, but the sheer wit was a close second; I was actually a little disappointed he bothered to go for the Bob Jones thing with McCain, because the salad fork thing on its own was perfection. Fuck off, the jokes were tired. The need for the jokes is what’s tired, and tiring.
People keen on dismissing him want us to believe he fucked something up–he didn’t realize they wouldn’t like it, or he “wasn’t funny.” Because, if it was an accident and/or a failure, then it didn’t actually take gigantic, titanium balls. But it did. No, it wasn’t standing-in-front-of-a-tank courageous, but it was a large professional risk, and probably an intensely uncomfortable experience, and he did it, on purpose, because it was the right fucking thing to do.
Balls. Big ones. Jesus.
Right on, Right on. Colbert had enough balls to say what he wanted to and even though a lot of the stiffs in the room weren’t laughing. I know I was laughing at home
Colbert went into the lion’s den and poked them all with sticks. I found it admirable.
Poor thing, his phone is probably tapped nowadays, and he’ll be off to Gitmo soon enough.