I haven't quite decided what I think of Stephen Colbert's speech at the Correspondents' Dinner though I'm getting there. I will say that he showed great courage to do some of that material in front of that crowd. I'd be curious to hear reports from people who were actually in the room since the audience was not well-miked and I'm not sure why certain folks were selected for the audience reaction shots. One did get the idea that Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush weren't delighted with the floor show…as is explained in what I suspect is the first of many articles about the performance.
I've never been to one of these press dinners but I'm guessing it's a very hard room for a comedian. The people aren't there to be entertained. They want to mingle and hobnob with the famous. They'll sit still for a speech by the president, whoever he is at the moment, because it's his presence that elevates the importance of the event they're proud to be attending. But apart from that, I'll bet most of the crowd is eager for it to be over with so they can go back to fraternizing. The gent who was hosting seemed to be having a fair amount of trouble getting the audience to pipe down and listen to the program.
I'd also be curious to know what Colbert's goal was…and it may not have just been to entertain the folks out front in the formal wear. If it was, he probably went about it the wrong way. When you hammer the president that much right in front of him, you make an awful lot of people uncomfy…and not just the ones who side with the guy. I thought some of Colbert's lines were brilliant but if I'd been in the room, I might have spent more time looking at the reactions of others (Bush, especially) to some of them than laughing. On the other hand, Colbert's main objective may have been to cultivate a certain image as a performer…or simply to express his views. He could well have succeeded in one or both of those.
I'm going to watch it again tomorrow and see how I feel about it then. It may be it's like one of those events where the boss is being ridiculed but everyone feels okay about laughing as soon as the boss starts laughing. Only in this case, the boss never started laughing.