Richard Cohen is a Funny Guy

Steven Colbert on the other hand... We know all this because Cohen tells us so in a column about Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondent's dinner.
First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed could be done on demand. This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner...
It gets worse.
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.

Cohen was pretty upset that an alleged comedian took advantage of the President's status as a virtual prisoner at the dinner to confront him with some uncomfortable truths.

A friend of mine felt obliged to send Cohen an email:

Dear Mr. Cohen,

Thank goodness I read your column. All my friends thought Colbert was funny, and I thought I might be losing it. You, sir, are funny. I was reminded of something you wrote back on Feb 6 of 2003:
"The evidence he presented to the United Nations -- some of it circumstantial, some of it absolutely bone-chilling in its detail -- had to prove to anyone that Iraq not only hasn't accounted for its weapons of mass destruction but without a doubt still retains them. Only a fool -- or possibly a Frenchman -- could conclude otherwise.

Now that's funny! As funny as one of those planeloads of coffins your credulous sychophancy helped produce. And you weren't even rude. Unless you count fools and Frenchmen.

Let's review the bidding:

We have a Presidency where all televisions are tuned to Fox News. We have a President who famously doesn't read the papers, a President whose aides were afraid interrupt his vacation to tell him that an American city was being destroyed - clearly such a President has a very sensitive temperment, and for a comedian to take advantage of an opportunity to tell him what nobody else would is just really, really, really rude.

Damn but you are a funny guy!

I think I'd better quit before I think of something rude.

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