If you are among the few lefties (or are among the even fewer righties reading this) who have not see Stephen Colbert's 24-minute 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner presentation one year ago (April 29, 2006), then take sixteen minutes out of your busy life to play the Swing Speech.
This was the moment, folks, when the Press started to realize how stupid it all was. Stephen Colbert, I think it will be historically argued, changed history.
He was the first to call Bush's number to his face, and only obliquely, by truthiness. But he put every single member of the White House Correspondents Dinner on notice, that they were complicit in clothing the emperor. Listen to the quality of the laughter from the crowd. They're embarrassed.
Before that, W was the Chief who was Hailed. Colbert's performance, standing with balls of adamantium 12 feet away from the President, was incredible. He concluded with an overstretched puff piece, allowing all to pretend they could applaud, at the end.
After this performance, Bush gradually becomes the parody of The Deciderer, in a majority of the public's eye. They recognize his bullshit; that this emporer had no clothes. Is that because the MSM finally grokked their responsibilities? Because D's got subpoena power?
Nah, it's because a smart comedian unmasked the Leaderer for the first time in history, and because the MSMest of the MSM beast was called out -- oh, and because YouTube and Google Video made it generally available for anyone to pass on to others.
Watch the clip again, for the very first time: Apr 29, 2006
http://video.google.com/...
Stay with it. It gets incredible -- though you can skip the last 8-minute puff piece.
[Update:] ok, well, maybe only skip the last 4 minutes. That chase scene goes on way too long.