Colbert New Comic-in-Chief

Wow. Colbert stands up for America. You gotta watch this amazing display of guts to believe it. Colbert gives Bush and the administration a withering attack right in front of the President and everyone else. For some reason my machine was crashing, I think the secret service is trying to corrupt the video stream... Okay, maybe I'm just being paranoid, but you gotta see this masterpiece. It's on CSPAN, too.

None of the major newspapers have covered it in detail. Is that because of threats from the White House? I agree with Colbert: it's criminal the self-censorship of the press. It's so sad that the only place covering Colbert's performance is slashdot (of all places) and other blogs.

Transcript here.

Since the mainstream press is sooo afraid of being disinvited to the white house (at least for the next couple of years), I'm hoping it will go viral. Track progress on the net: at Google blogsearch.

The slashdot posting:
Colbert New Comic-in-Chief: "scottzak writes 'Hail to the Chief! Stephen Colbert addressed the White House Correspondents Dinner Saturday (attended by the President, the elite of Washington politics, and the White House Press Corps) and told the truth. Jaws dropped. Eyes popped. The live audience gasped. Scalia laughed his ass off. You want to see a brilliant comic display some real courage? Look no further. Enjoy the reaction shots, and Colbert's audition for Press Secretary job.' The BBC covers the act just prior to Mr. Colbert's, where the President and a look-alike took turns making fun of his speaking skills.

-- updated May 1

The only places I could find comment on this other than blogs:
HuffingtonPost.com and
Editor and Publisher with letters from readers -- some appear pretty pissed... so I think Colbert must have scored.

I can't believe no one else treated this even as a news story. At least they could have said that he bombed.

-- updated May 2

The New York Times finally gets the guts to mention it...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/03/arts/03colb.html

-- updated May 8

SF Indy Media (whoever they are -- not mainstream media, I guess) gives more details.

NY Times covers the move of the video from YouTube to Cspan.org and Google video.

-- updated May 21

Audio portion available for $2 at audible.com. But the video is still free to download from Google video.

NYTimes editor says it was wrong not to anticipate a reaction to the clip and write a news story about it.