When the President Joked About Not Finding WMD

I had to shut off Keith Olbermann last night when Dana Milbank said that Stephen Colbert had not been funny at the Press Dinner the other night. Of course Milbank thought Bush was hilarious 2 years ago with his missing WMD routine. Dana Milbank, you are a fucking tool. Keith Olbermann please dump his ass. Thank you Greg Miller & Editor & Publisher!

When the President Joked About Not Finding WMD

"Many say Stephen Colbert went too far in lampooning President Bush at the White House Correspondents Dinner, or was just "not funny." Where was all that disapproval when Bush, at a very similar gathering two years ago, built a whole comedy routine around not finding WMD in Iraq? By Greg Mitchell

(May 01, 2006) -- For two days the battle has raged on the Web: Did Stephen Colbert go too far in lampooning President Bush, to his face, at the White House Correspondents Dinner on Saturday night? Is that why his barbs did not generate more laughter around the room of 2700 journalists, celebrities and other guests? Or was it because he suggested the press was spineless in failing to confront the president on Iraq? Or was Colbert just not that funny?

In any case, the event has inspired debate on hundreds of political and media blogs, the posting of the video on dozens of sites, and massive traffic to the E&P, where the first in-depth account of Colbert’s performance was posted Saturday night.

You’d think from all the criiticism that the guy had based his routine on joking about launching a war and not finding the WMDs that inspired it. Oh, right, that was President Bush, two years ago.

Nevertheless, Dana Milbank of The Washington Post, appearing on Keith Olbermann’s MSNBC program Monday night, joined the ranks of those who attended the dinner who felt Colbert “was not funny.” On the other hand, he said the president’s routine that night with a Bush impersonator was a howl.

This is the same Milbank who last June mocked a congressional forum on the Downing Street memo, and said it was led by a “hearty band of playmates.”

(snip)

Still, with the knocks on Colbert increasing, I have to ask: Where was the outrage when President Bush made fun of not finding those pesky WMDs at a very similar media dinner—in the same ballroom--two years ago? It represents a shameful episode for the American media, and presidency, yet is rarely mentioned today."

(snip)

"In any case, another 1900 Americans have died in Iraq since Bush’s ha-ha home video. As it happens, the Downing Street memo, and a similar British document that surfaced recently, suggested that Bush doubted WMDs existed and “fixed” the intelligence to take the nation to war. What a riot.

At that same Downing Street memo forum at the Capitol last year that Milbank mocked, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, after cataloguing the bogus Bush case for WMDs and the Iraqi threat, looked out at the cameras and notepads, mentioned the March 24, 2004 dinner, and acted out the president looking under papers and table for those missing WMDs. “And the media was all yucking it up ... hahaha,” McGovern said. “You all laughed with him, folks.” Then he mentioned soldiers who had died “after that big joke.” Read the whole thing.

Comments

[kolibri]

You fill me with inertia.

[Joe Greenlight]

It's obvious. Hacks like Milbank see Colbert and Jon Stewart as threats to their cushy existence. The more Comedy Central matters as a legitimate news outlet, the less MSNBC and others do. Milbank is straight up player-hatin'.

[E.P.]

See Bush search for WMD at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9EbssUgHj4