Richard continues to maintain his column's batting average about 50 points above the Mendoza Line.

So you don't agree with Cohen that Colbert's act was basically rude? That's my take. The comic doing a "roast" must tread carefully: the point is "good-natured joshing at the expense of the host," not "stick it to the Man and make him squirm in his seat." That's why the act went over so poorly among the audience: the anger and seriousness behind the jokes created more embarassment than laughter.

It went over badly because it was a room of self-important nitwits. Comedy depends on making people uncomfortable. That's why it's conservative.

The best take I heard was that he was performing not for the audience in the room, but the audience watching on C-SPAN and who would hear about it later. And with the latter, based on their reaction, he was a big hit.

The rude part is that the audience in the room was paying for his act, and he didn't deliver.

Sure, he did. He was funny. That's his job. Not truckling to the press and pols.

He was paid to "entertain" the in-person audience, and, based on their reactions and reviews, he failed. He didn't do his job, or misreprented the job he was going to do. Do you apply the same standard to the people who provide personal services for you? Don't know about you, but when I go to have my vehicle fixed, I don't really care if their usual customers love the lousy job done for me. (And if I go back, I deserve to be called a "chump".)

Of course, the solution is to just keep the cameras out, or better yet, make it pay-per-view. Imagine the demographics of those who'd actually pay to see something like the White House Correspondence Dinner. Talk about your wonks and dateless wonders...

Plenty of it was very funny but expecting the president and others to laugh when it was so one-sided is unrealistic. Colbert ought to mix it up a little, particularly since the Democrats are such a target-rich environment.

Matt:

Making fun of the powerless is needlessly cruel.

Not laughing at rude jokes at your expense doesn't make you a self-important nitwit. Comedy may depend on some psychological "discomfort," but if you make people too uncomfortable, you lose the comedy, which was the core of the job Colbert was hired for. There's a difference between a tap to the ribs with an elbow and a kick to the groin, especially in a social situation where manners forbid your target from responding. As Matt said, too one-sided, and as Raoul said, it didn't suit the primary audience.

Raoul:

Yes. If I hire a painter to paint my house brown and then decide I don't like the color it doesn't mean he's a bad painter.

Those are only kicks to the groin for humorless self-important gits. W will have found him funny. Remember, his old man invited Dana Carvey to the White House after he lost to cheer folks up.

OJ:

Making fun of the powerless is needlessly cruel.

Now THAT'S funny. :-)

Also, note you've just directed that biting jab at the Democrats. You prove my point.

Matt:

Humor is cruel.

I didn't see Colbert's part of the show, so I don't know what happened. But if thousands of people are so whacked that they wrote Richard Cohen to tell him that he is insufficiently doctrinaire, it proves that humor is conservative, that the left has no idea what this dinner means, and that people don't remember Don Rickles.

OJ:

Yep. It's understandable that GOP politicos don't like cruelty directed exclusively towards them.

Humor, and there's no evidence that the President didn't enjoy it.

I'd guess half of the thousands who wrote never saw the show and were just doing a BDS kneejerk to Rich's article.

"He who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas."

Except the painter used two shades of brown so that various words appear in the right lighting angle on one wall (talented guy, him) , and he added some foreign material (is the dog constipated again, the yard seems cleaner than usual?) to the paint on the other. But you got your "brown house".

"no evidence that the President didn't enjoy it."

Naming the logical fallacy (in Latin) shown here is an exercise for the student.

Mr. Judd;

What, are you saying that remote psychological diagnoses based on irrelevant visual artifacts doesn't constitute proof?

Raoul:

If he's capable of that he's an excellent painter, no?

AOG:

No, I'm saying that Colbert was funny and the President likely thought him so.

And hasn't America's Funniest Home Videos thrived for years on kicks to the groin videos? Somebody thinks they are funny.

OJ:

Never said it wasn't humor. Cruel behavior is frequently funny.

The reports I came across relayed that the president got pretty stone-faced halfway through the monologue. That said, media analysis of the president's behavior is usually a joke in itself.