\jeff{krimmel}

Colbert Skewers The President

Stephen Colbert, formerly a correspondent on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show and now host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, gave a speech at The White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner on Saturday night. It turns out that speech was largely ignored by the mainstream media, and when it was given some press, it was a couple of lines at most.

If you heard anything about the dinner, you probably heard about the bit where the president appeared with a comic impersonator. The president made a comment, and the impersonator would say what the president was “actually” thinking. Supposedly it got a few laughs and was good clean entertainment.

Most of the mainstream media were not so thrilled about Stephen Colbert’s contribution to the evening. Steve Doocy, a Fox News contributer, attended the event and described Colbert’s speech as

one unflattering jab at the president followed by another.

Of course this isn’t surprising coming from a Fox News contributor. In fact, there is one small section in Mr. Colbert’s speech that might have hit particularly close to home:

As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president’s side, and the vice president’s side.

Colbert hit on the president’s warrant-less NSA wire-tapping program:

By the way, before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Somebody from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

He also reminded everyone of the failing of our promise to help the Iraqis create their own functioning government:

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

He also noted the president’s record low approval ratings:

Now, I know there are some polls out there saying this man has a 32% approval rating. 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.

Colbert also highlighted the president’s inability to adjust his decision-making in the light of newly uncovered (or previously uncovered) facts:

You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday.

He pointed out the Reverend Jesse Jackson in the audience and touched on the increasingly well-recognized global warming disaster:

You can ask [the Reverend] anything, but he’s going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It’s like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

So Mr. Doocy might find these to be “unflattering jabs”, but it’s about damn time this president heard these things face-to-face. His approval ratings are plummeting for a reason: he is failing. Miserably. We’re running record budget deficits, thousands of Americans have died in Iraq, we haven’t captured Osama Bin Laden, gas prices are going through the roof…the list goes on and on.

This president is running this country into the ground, and it’s time for someone, anyone, a comedian if necessary, to express these frustrations at the highest levels. Oh, and I found the above excerpts are from a complete transcript of Colbert’s speech I found on the web.