Rearranging deck chairs on the Hindenburg: Stephen Colbert at the White House
I never thought I'd see Stephen Colbert get invited to speak at the White House, but truthiness is stranger than fiction. And what a stinkbomb he launched during his speech at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner last Friday when he lampooned everyone and everything there. Bush looked so pissed! At the end, the president walked right by Colbert to shake someone's hand standing nearby, and ignored Colbert even when he followed Bush out of the room. So hilarious. Colbert displayed more guts in twenty minutes than Bush ever has, exposing that Bush and the White House press corps, with the definite exception of Helen Thomas, are a joke.
The NYT says, "Mark Smith, a reporter for The Associated Press who is president of the White House Correspondents' Association, acknowledges that he had not seen much of Stephen Colbert on Comedy Central before he booked him as the main entertainment for the association's annual black-tie dinner on Saturday night."
No shit! Is Mr Smith vying to wear the cape belonging to Captain Obvious?
Some of the best moments:
"Now I know there's some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating," Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. "But guys like us, we don't pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking 'in reality.' And reality has a well-known liberal bias."
"We're not so different, [Bush] and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut. Do you know you have more nerve endings in your gut than you have in your head? You can look it up. I know some of you are going to say 'I did look it up, and that's not true.' That's 'cause you looked it up in a book."
"John McCain is here. John McCain, John McCain, what a maverick! Somebody find out what fork he used on his salad, because I guarantee you it wasn't a salad fork. This guy could have used a spoon! There's no predicting him. By the way, Senator McCain, it's so wonderful to see you coming back into the Republican fold. I have a summer house in South Carolina; look me up when you go to speak at Bob Jones University. So glad you've seen the light, sir."
"Everybody asks for personnel changes. So the White House has personnel changes. Then you write, "Oh, they're just rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic." First of all, that is a terrible metaphor. This administration is not sinking. This administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg!"
Here's a transcript of the speech. Here's the video.