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It's been a couple of days since the White House Correspondent's dinner. (Don't know about this annual love-fest?Read about it here.)

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Salon story about the performance.
Another Salon story about how Colbert is being ignored.


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New York Times article about how blogs have picked up the story.


The liberal blogs say: Take that!
The conservative blogs say: He wasn't funny!

The mainstream media is getting caught up on the funny thing. Seems like a good way to diffuse it. I think they are confusing themselves. People who haven't seen it should do one of following:

• Read the transcript

• Listen to it. (minimize the video. Video links at Boingboing)
• Add a laugh track to the video, then watch it. (No one's done this yet)

Colbert walked up there with wonderfully on-point, spot-on satire of a Bush supporter.

The uncomfortable feeling everyone gets while watching the video is not unfunniness. The uncomfortableness comes from the fact that the president of the United States was ten feet away. Forget about that fact and see if you think it's funny then.

It doesn't change anything he said, it just rids it of that weird feeling no one can put their finger on.

Update: Tim Grieve has a wonderful analysis of this dustup on Salon, where he basically says: This was news and it was ignored.