Most of the MSM has been poisoned by the Kool-Aid of their own proximity to power and influence. The exciting news is that Stephen Colbert's performance last Saturday has since proved to be a reliable test of Kool-Aid toxicity in journalists.
Colbert's exposure of Bush's imperial nudity has utterly freaked out the more cowardly members of the press. As Michael Scherer wrote in Salon,
They had put on their tuxes to rub shoulders with the president. They were looking forward to spotting Valerie Plame and "American Idol's" Ace Young at the Bloomberg party. They invited Colbert to speak for levity, not because they wanted to be criticized. As a tribe, we journalists are all, at heart, creatures of this silly conversation. We trade in talking points and consultant-speak. We too often depend on empty language for our daily bread, and -- worse -- we sometimes mistake it for reality. Colbert was attacking us as well.
True! Please follow me now for an in-depth demonstration of the Stephen Colbert Electric Kool-Aid Litmus Test.
You could almost predict which pundits would cheer and which would jeer. Those few with minds of their own found Colbert hilarious and daring, even heroic; the stenographers and the wingnuts were nonplussed and outraged, respectively. Here's a brief roundup, both from the MSM and from the blogosphere (fair & balanced!); please add more, if you got 'em:
James Wolcott:
The we-are-not-amused smile Laura Bush gave him when he left the podium was a priceless tribute to the displeasure he incurred. To me, Colbert looked very relaxed after the Bushes left the room and he greeted audience members, signed autographs. And why wouldn't he be? He achieved exactly what he wanted to achieve, delivered the message he intended to deliver. Mission accomplished.
Kool-Aid Quotient: an unsurprising 0% toxicity
Christopher Lehmann, aka Mr. Wonkette (note to Mr. Lehmann, if you would please set fire to your thesaurus and any other reference books you have got on your desk):
Safely delivered all in the stentorian, arrogant voice of Mr. Colbert's late-night Bill O'Reilly knockoff persona, the material came off as shrill and airless, with little time or space left for jokes to sink in and seduce the listener before the next round of hectoring began.
KQ: 39% toxicity
Mary Matalin:
"This was predictable, Bush-bashing kind of humor," Ms. Matalin, who was there, said in an interview. Of Mr. Colbert, she said, "Because he is who he is, and everyone likes him, I think this room thought he was going to be more sophisticated and creative."
KQ: 241% toxicity
Jon Stewart:
"It was balls-alicious," Stewart said. "Apparently he was under the impression that they'd hired him to do what he does every night on television" -- that is, make fun of conservatives, public officials, and the press in the guise of an O'Reillyesque talk show host.
"We've never been prouder of him, but HOLY ----," Stewart added.
He also described the annual dinner as "where the President and the press corps consummate their loveless marriage."
KQ: .022% toxicity (just for flava)
Jacques Steinberg in the New York Times:
Some, though, saw nothing more sinister in the silence of news organizations than a decision to ignore a routine that, to them, just was not funny.
KQ: 50% toxicity (plus 27% feeb quotient)
Dwayne Powell, The News and Observer/Creators Syndicate (via Editor and Publisher):
[...] I've been fit to be tied over their response (or lack of) to Colbert's damn gutsy and right on performance. I wanted to bitch slap Milbank the other night on Olberman and then work my way up to that twit Tucker. Oh hell, might as well make the rounds of the whole room at the Press Club.
KQ: 0% toxicity; Kickapoo Joy Juice Quotient, 24%
Scott Rosenberg in Salon:
Colbert's act had less in common with cable-channel comedy shows than with the work of Dario Fo, the Italian iconoclast who specializes in lese majeste (he likes to poke fun at the Pope). In this it resembled Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, but it was smarter than that propagandistic montage, and braver -- delivered live, as it was, in the belly of the press-corps beast it was skewering.
KQ: 0% toxicity
Marty Kaplan, in Huffington Post:
If the President comes to your party, surely it's a validation of your credibility, of your relevance to the nation's democratic well-being. On such a night, it's effortless to think that Blogistan is far away, full of rabble, and no threat to your authority or longevity. I imagine Marie Antoinette felt the same way.
KQ: 0% toxicity
Andrew Sullivan:
Colbert has become a popular hero simply for sticking it to the president in public [...] I think Colbert played the role of the court jester. That's an important and significant role. Watching part of the routine online, I can see the point. A British reader adds:
I've seen the video. He didn't misfire - he punctured a bubble. If only for a moment. Good on him.
I concur.
KQ: 0% toxicity. We may safely pronounce Mr. Sullivan fully cured.
Michelle Malkin:
Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert, the featured comedian, fell flat.
Kool-Aid: 440% toxicity; Bile: 187% toxicity
Tim Grieve, in Salon:
In the core of his performance, standing just feet away from the president, Colbert adopted Bush's phony or just feckless "from the gut" style of talking and thinking, then revealed it for the international embarrassment that it is. You can't say something like that without sounding strident and heavy-handed; if you're a reporter for a major American newspaper, you can't really say it at all.
KQ: a refreshing 0% toxicity
Peter Daou:
Colbert's performance is sidestepped and marginalized while Bush is treated as light-hearted, humble, and funny. Expect nothing less from the cowardly American media. The story could just as well have been Bush and Laura's discomfort and the crowd's semi-hostile reaction to Colbert's razor-sharp barbs. In fact, I would guess that from the perspective of newsworthiness and public interest, Bush-the-playful-president is far less compelling than a comedy sketch gone awry, a pissed-off prez, and a shell-shocked audience.
KQ: 0%, crisp and delectable with notes of citrus, granite and hellfire.
Billmon:
Colbert used satire the way it's used in more openly authoritarian societies: as a political weapon, a device for raising issues that can't be addressed directly. He dragged out all the unmentionables -- the Iraq lies, the secret prisons, the illegal spying, the neutered stupidity of the lapdog press -- and made it pretty clear that he wasn't really laughing at them, much less with them. It may have been comedy, but it also sounded like a bill of indictment, and everybody understood the charges. . . . Colbert's real sin . . . was inserting a brief moment of honesty into an event based upon a lie -- one considered socially necessary by the political powers that be, but still, a lie.
KQ: 0% toxicity, with a good kick to it (hic)
Video Dog, on Salon:
For the most part the press sat on their hands -- while just moments before, they were laughing uproariously at President Bush's incredibly lame skit with a Bush impressionist. That was Colbert's real feat: Showing us the real Washington media world, where everyone worries so much about offending someone, anyone, that the least bit of frank talk turns them into obedient little church mice.
KQ: 0%
Richard Cohen, self-professed 'funny guy' (news to me!) in the Washington Post:
The commentary, though, is also what I do, and it will make the point that Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.
KQ: 85% toxicity; extract of green-eyed monster: 125% toxicity
Elisabeth Bumiller of the New York Times, let us not forget, managed not to mention Colbert AT ALL.
Kool-Aid: 100% toxicity
And my favorite, and possibly the worst of the lot, Dana Milbank discusses cucumber martinis with Keith Olbermann, in an irony worthy of Colbert himself:
MILBANK: I don`t think he crossed the line. I just think he wasn`t terribly funny and he had the misfortune of following Bush who actually did put on one of the better performances of his presidency. I think if you look at Colbert`s career progression, I think the high water mark was when he had you on the show Keith and it`s pretty much - I mean we`re just on a downward spiral there right now.
[bluh blah blah blaaaaah blah Imus lighter touch blah]
MILBANK: We go through this each year saying we have had enough. First it was Fawn hall showing up and now we`re all the way to George Clooney. I think what`s happening here is everybody--you go to the Bloomberg party afterwards and you have cucumber martinis and the problem is everybody forgets how dreadful the evening was. And so therefore, we are unprepared when the whole thing occurs again next year. I saw a number of your producers with the cucumber martinis at the Bloomberg party, so I expect we`re going to be right here again next year.
OLBERMANN: They are all out sick today and I was told that they had like dental problems. Howard Fineman e-mailed me about the cucumber martinis. Were they potent or that bad?
MILBANK: Didn`t they have a special cucumber drink at the screaming Viking in "Cheers" when you could have it bruised or slightly bruised? It was the best I`ve ever had and I was able to drive home.
Milbank: 85% KQ
Olbermann: 12% KQ