They are right; Colbert *WASN’T* funny.

[IdaBriggs]

He was PAINFUL.

Let’s start with the first “real” joke – skipping the Black SUV thing, which was moderately amusing considering gas prices, and how we pay for the entourage vehicles of these “really important people” – the first “real” joke was about Vice President Richard Cheney SHOOTING SOMEONE IN THE FACE while DRINKING on a “HUNTING TRIP” WITH HIS MISTRESS.

He’s still employed by “we the people” despite an approval rating in the teens. Really, is that funny?

Next we move on to the NSA, which is spying on American citizens without warrants. Boy, what a laugh riot that joke isn’t!

Onward – skipping through some of the self-deprecating stuff – and we get non-subtle references about how our economy is going to hell in a hand basket because American Jobs are being EXPORTED TO CHINA. Jobs? American workers don’t need no stinking jobs! Let’s all yuck it up!

“The government which governs best is the government that governs least – by that measure we’re doing a GREAT JOB IN IRAQ.” Dear God in Heaven, women and children are being BLOWN UP DAILY in that country, while the lack of medical care, education and ELECTRICITY are epidemic – this, in a country known for its previously high literacy rate!!!

On and on the list goes:

- The take over of our government by the “Jesus” brigade.
- Gasoline prices, and the “let’s gouge America first” oil company mentality.
- The non-importance of “REALITY” to this mis-administration.
- Secret prisons.
- Dead soldiers.
- The “OUTING” of one of our Spy Masters.
- The Death of New Orleans, and the ongoing “non-response” to our Gulf Coast citizens.

And most painful of all, a press that truly believes its job is “Stenographer to the Decider.”

Lord help us all, it *WASN’T FUNNY* -- but it was all TRUE.

And we laughed because we’ve already been weeping, and we are tired of that, and finally, Finally, FINALLY we know that SOMEONE actually said what we all know to be true RIGHT TO THEIR FACES.

We now *know* they know. The only question is, what are they – the rich, the powerful, and the press – going to do about it?

[Kutjara]

1. When I watched it...

...I got that feeling like I imagine some people get when their doctor tells them they've got cancer. They know it's horrible and might kill them but, for some inexplicable reason, they laugh. I felt like I was laughing at my own funeral.

Gallows humor, I believe its called.

[Imagine My Surprise]

9. Colbert is a satirist...and satire isn't about watching Gallagher...

ax a watermelon in half. The Homer Simpsons of the world find that amusing. As a comedian, I remember hearing a horrid tale once of some buffoon yelling out at the comedian who was onstage, "Them's just WORDS!" Nuf said.

[KyuzoGator]

2. I was also puzzled by the parsing of the comedy and not of the facts.

America 2006 is more concerned about being entertained than about being informed.

But even still, Colbert was damn funny.

[sarge43]

3. No it wasn't funny

Any more than Swift's A Modest Proposal or Twain's A War Prayer are funny. Good satire isn't meant to be funny; it's a kick in the teeth, a slap in the face.

[Imagine My Surprise]

13. Thank you, so right.

[tomp]

18. amusement by satire fits my definition of funny.

agree with your comparisons to swift and twain.

[bullimiami]

4. superimpose this with bush doing his wmd 'aint under here'

from last year.

also. wasnt funny. it was painful, in your face. Im a liar and im going to joke about it.
remember the huge belly laughs from the audience?

laugh with nero while rome burns but dont laugh at neros expense. sickening.

[Imagine My Surprise]

14. Great observation!

[nicknameless]

5. Off to Greatest.

Excellent points

[applegrove]

6. You gotta laugh at yourself. Just because you are under duress

doesn't mean you stop laughing at what a small little mammal you are in the whole sceme of things. Laughter keeps you sane. And yes - it is the truth you are laughing at if you are an adult. You laugh at yourself or your situation. Rather than what ann coulter teaches.. which is to laugh at others using myth. That is juvenile.

Colbert was all about truth.

[rustydog]

7. Well written excellent

:applause:

[IdaBriggs]

21. Thank you!

:blush:

[rock]

8. Truth, disguised as humor

Or if you will, Truthiness. And damn funny!

[peacetalksforall]

10. The evenine was a war of truth - Colbert won! ... n/t

[Gregorian]

11. You nailed it. Now let's all laugh about Hitler.

He had his little dinners. I'm sure some German jester cracked jokes while Jews were being rounded up. Ha ha, funny funny.

Humor is often about loss and disaster. But not during the disaster.

Now choking on a pretzel? That's hilarious.

[misternormal]

12. What he said was the truth...

... The funny part was knowing the level of "pucker power" those words had on the Chimpmeister... No doubt he had to unstick his ass from the chair.

[Gregorian]

16. Pretty much how we've felt since the blue dress bs.

And that same press corp were the ones who twisted the so-called news back in 1999. Gore ran circles around that Chimp. To think how starved we have been, to get such satisfaction from one speech. It was the fact that it went unfiltered into his ears, and we know that he heard it. The way I see it, Colbert delivered us a gift.

[rucky]

23. You know what the key to comedy is?timing. n/t

[madrchsod]

15. he had no intention of being funny

only the helen bit was funny

[monk24]

17. Colbert playing jester to "King" Bush

Colbert's performance reminded me of the court jester speaking truth to a clueless monarch. As a University of Chicago article on the the role of the jester puts it:

"Of at least equal importance with his entertainer's cap was the jester's function as adviser and critic. This is what distinguishes him from a pure entertainer who would juggle batons, swallow swords, or strum on a lute or a clown who would play the fool simply to amuse people. The jester everywhere employed the same techniques to carry out this delicate role, and it would take an obtuse king or emperor not to realize what he was driving at, since 'other court functionaries cooked up the king's facts for him before delivery; the jester delivered them raw.'"

[tomp]

19. gee, ya think * will take colbert's advice? nt

[Mr_Spock]

20. It was that lack of funniness that had me on the floor laughing

I was giddy with the feeling of how embarrassing it was for fake President Shrub to have all of his horrible exploits exposed to the world in front of an audience that included many of his mindless worshipers. It was the one time where I could really appreciate the meaning of satire. I haven't laughed that hard in years! :D

[deutsey]

22. Colbert and satire

This is what I sent in response to Richard Cohen's column in the Washington Post last week.

Mr. Cohen,

You say you are a funny person. While I have seen no evidence of that in what I have read of your writing, I'll take you at your word. "Being funny," after all, is something of a subjective thing. The same people who find Richard Pryor or George Carlin hilarious probably fail to see the humor in Larry the Cable Guy or Adam Sandler, and vice versa.

As an independent Mark Twain scholar, though, I think I know a little something about American satire; enough to know, anyway, that it isn't always intended to be "funny" in the same way other kinds of humor are meant to be.

If you read Twain's essay "To a Person Sitting in Darkness," for example, you will probably conclude it isn't very funny at all. Twain's invective against US imperialism contradicts the avuncular image of the old man in a white suite spouting folksy aphorisms that we associate with Twain. This essay (and many others he wrote throughout his life) isn't funny but it is damn good satire, the kind of satire that is meant to afflict the comfortable.

However, in 1901 The New York Times poo-poo'ed the essay much in the same manner you critique Colbert's speech. Scolding a reader who wrote in support of "To a Person Sitting in Darkness," the NYT pontificated:

"A man who makes it his vocation to be funny is not called upon late in life to develop a historical conscience."

Knowing what I know of Twain, he didn't make such a distinction between being funny and developing a historical conscience. Based on what I heard in Colbert's speech, I don't think he does either.

It's a pity that critics like yourself do.

[Peter Frank]

24. Wag of the finger...

...to all your untruthiness ;)