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.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more