The MSM and When the Truth Hurts

The single most cited topic in the emails I got during my just-completed sabbatical was not the latest Washington outrage or saber rattling over Iran. It was the outrageously funny sendup of the Bush administration and its media toadies by comedian Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents' annual black-tie dinner and the outrageous (if predictable) response of the main stream media, which was to pretty much ignore the whole thing until the outcry in the blogoshere grew too loud.

Salon's Joan Walsh sums it up nicely:

Colbert's deadly performance did more than reveal, with devastating clarity, how Bush's well-oiled myth machine works. It exposed the mainstream press' pathetic collusion with an administration that has treated it -- and the truth -- with contempt from the moment it took office. Intimidated, coddled, fearful of violating propriety, the press corps that for years dutifully repeated Bush talking points was stunned and horrified when someone dared to reveal that the media emperor had no clothes. Colbert refused to play his dutiful, toothless part in the White House correspondents dinner -- an incestuous, backslapping ritual that should be retired. For that, he had to be marginalized. Voilà: "He wasn't funny."

If you want to see what the kerfuffle is all about, here's the video. I also have a modest suggestion to the White House Correspondents Association: Ditch the dinner. It's an embarrassing anachronism.