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God Bless America

So there's this traditional White House Correspondent Dinner that the White House reporters and the President traditionally attend, and where they tease each other, presumably all in good fun. This year, Stephen Colbert showed just house much balls he had by making jabs at the President that were anything but polite and light-hearted.

There's about 26 minutes' worth on YouTube in three parts: [one] [two] [three]

And here's an edited down 11 minute best of clip, and the 7 minute skit he does at the end where he "auditions" for White House Press Secretary, complete with cameo by Helen Thomas.

On one hand, I feel like the point of the dinner is to ease tensions between Bush and the press corps, and this was a rather inappropriate and probably had the opposite effect. On the other hand, it's pretty awesome for someone to really punishingly bash the President like that to his face, and have the President shake his hand and apparently even say, "Good job," to him afterward [Editor and Publisher article], even though he stopped smiling not too long into Colbert's speech.

Most importantly, though, I'm proud to live in a country where someone can actually do something like this to the President and not fear reprisal. (Although, I bet you the White House is going to more carefully review the speaker selection at next year's dinner!)

P.S.: Most of the articles on the evening focused on how Bush performed a skit with an impersonator, which mostly made fun of his saying "nukular", etc., and didn't mention Colbert. So in the interests of being fair and balanced, here's the 11 minute two Bushes skit on YouTube.

P.P.S.: And finally, that kinda reminded me of the video Clinton made way back when (apparently also for the White House Correspondent Dinner) called The Final Days (6 minutes).

Update May-3: A CBS News blog points out that, at a White House Correspondent Dinner several years ago, Don Imus pissed off Clinton with jokes about his womanizing (pre-Lewinsky).

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LEAVE THIS FIELD BLANK. IT IS HERE TO TRAP ROBOTS.

LEAVE THIS FIELD BLANK. IT IS HERE TO TRAP ROBOTS.

LEAVE THIS FIELD BLANK. IT IS HERE TO TRAP ROBOTS.

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This page contains a single entry from the blog posted on April 30, 2006.

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