That After-Dinner Speech Remains a Favorite Dish By NOAM COHEN
"The after-dinner speech that refuses to go away has scored another distinction: top of the charts.
An audio version of the roast of President Bush by Stephen Colbert of Comedy Central rose to the rank of No. 1 album at Apple's iTunes store on Saturday, three weeks to the night of the White House Correspondents Dinner. Also in the Top 10 were new releases by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam and Paul Simon.
The audio version of Mr. Colbert's speech was delivered to iTunes through Audible.com, a company that provides audio content for downloading, including books, radio shows and shorter performances, and costs $1.95 to download. Neither C-Span nor Audible was able to say how many downloads there had been. Mr. Colbert was traveling and could not be reached.
By many accounts, Mr. Colbert's performance landed with a thud among his influential audience of journalists and politicians, who were more overtly enthusiastic about a comedy routine involving Mr. Bush and a professional George W. Bush impersonator. But the broadcast of the speech is enjoying a lucrative afterlife online, an unusual development for its owner, the nonprofit cable network C-Span."
I just don't understand how the media could be so freaking liberal, yet universally think that this speech wasn't funny. That's alot of people spending $2 to download an unfunny speech. Thank God for the internet because if we didn't have a free internet, you would never have known that Colbert even GAVE a speech. Liberal media my ass. Anyone who even uses that term with a straight face deserves to get punched.
>I just don't understand how the media could be so >freaking liberal, yet universally think that this >speech wasn't funny.
The reason is that Colbert exposed them as the cowed and fearful hypocrites that they are. When the Times claimed that they didn't report on it because it wasn't funny, excuse me, it's your job to report NEWS, not stuff that is funny. This was big news, and no one touched it. Gee, too bad we deregulated all the media ownership laws in the 80's and 90's... now the government has too much power over the, what, two companies that own them all, and now the only people who can report on controvertial issues are bloggers, the new news media.
Posted by: thom | May 24, 2006 at 03:23 AM
Yeah, irritating, but not surprising that the media declared it 'unfunny.' Colbert skewered them, so it hurt their feelings. More importantly, he skewered Bush in front of his face, making them feel pathetic and cowardly.
It's like Stewart's failure at the Oscars--Stewart was a bit nervous, but the real reason he bombed was because he made fun of Hollywood's self-importance.
Posted by: anon | May 28, 2006 at 12:20 PM