May 07, 2006
Atrios and Digby on Cox on Colbert
Atrios is mad at Ana Marie Cox for her column about the Colbert performance at the White House Correspondents Association dinner. Well, Atrios is always mad at someone, isn't he? He seems to share with George W. Bush the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person. (And would someone please send him a dictionary so he can look up the term "wanker"?)
Atrios links to Digby at Hullabaloo, who provides a detailed fisking of Cox's column. Digby's point seems to be that Cox is acting like an insider journalist, thus betraying her Web roots. Or something. ("Our little Wonkette is all grown up." Do I hear the voice of condescending envy, with just a touch of misogyny? Update: If I heard misogyny, it must have been with my tin ear. My apologies to Digby. More here.)Now as it happens I loved Colbert's performance. I thought, and think, that it was the best precis ever offered of what's wrong with the Bush Maladministration. I wish that it had gotten wider attention from the mainstream press, and I think it didn't get that attention largely because the mainstream press was the other primary target of Colbert's satiric wrath.
But nothing in Cox's trenchant, sensible, and well-written column is inconsistent with those beliefs. The main points of the column, as I read it, are:
1. Bloggers are insisting that the press's failure to laugh at Colbert's routine was due entirely to the press's complicity with the Bush Administration. An alternative view is that they didn't laugh because it wasn't funny.
2. Running a poll to determine whether something is funny reflects a misunderstanding of the concept "funny."
3. Insisting that other people laugh at the jokes you enjoy, or suggesting that their failure to do is morally culpable, reflects either a bullying temperament or a misunderstanding of the concept "joke."
4. Political humor is a poor substitute for political action.
Comedy can have a political point but it is not political action, and what Colbert said on the stage of the Washington Hilton — funny or not — means far less than what the ardent posters at ThankYouStephenColbert.org would like it to. While it may have shocked the President to hear someone talk so openly about his misdeeds in the setting of the correspondents dinner — joking about "the most powerful photo-ops in the world" and NSA wiretaps — I somehow doubt that Bush has never heard these criticisms before. To laud Colbert for saying them seems to me, a card-carrying lefty, to be settling. Colbert's defenders might aim for the same stinging criticisms to be issued not from the Hilton ballroom but from the dais in a Senate Judiciary committee hearing. And I wouldn't really care if they were funny or not.
As I said to a friend the next day, Colbert's routine was deeply comic but mostly not funny. (The "glacier" line and the "greeting" to Scalia were the major exceptions.) After all, being ruled by this collection of clowns and criminals is, as we say, no joke.
Ridicule, and especially ironic ridicule, has a long and respectable history. But its purpose is not to cause laughter. No one, I think, denies that Swift's "Modest Proposal" is among the masterpieces of the comic art. But it would take a heart of stone to laugh at it. The coroner's jury that (according to Chesterton) found in the case of a starvation victim from the Irish Potato Famine that the cause of death was "Wilful murder by Lord John Russell" was making an excellent joke, but it wasn't a joke intended to start uncontrollable giggling.
That's the tradition I take Colbert to have been working in. It's hard to tell without the perspective only time can afford, but I think his routine enriched that tradition.
Had I written Cox's column, I would have said some of that, in order to defend Colbert from the silly charge of having "bombed" when a routine not primarily designed to cause people to laugh did not, in fact, cause them to laugh. And I wouldn't have claimed, as she did, that the press did in fact cover Colbert's routine in a way that give readers and viewers a sense of what it was about, or implied that only a ha-ha-funny stand-up act would have been an appropriate way to fill the role Colbert had agreed to fill.
But Cox's primary target wasn't Colbert. Her target was the self-importance of some of us on the left side of the Blogosphere. Her column reminds me of Tom Lehrer's satiric attack on those who confused folk-singing with political activism.
Remember the war against Franco.
That's the kind where each of us belongs.
He may have won all the battles,
But we had all the good songs!
A good audience response to a satiric attack on a person or an idea is certainly a sign that the audience dislikes, or is prepared to dislike, that person or idea. But a sign isn't the same thing as a cause. As Macaulay says of Thomas Wharton's claim that in writing "Lilliburlero" he had "sung a king out of three kingdoms,"
... the song was the effect, and not the cause of that excited state of public feeling which produced the revolution.Yes, politics is partly conducted through talking and writing, and those of us whose primary mode of political engagement is talking and writing can sometimes do useful work. Obviously the mass media matter in politcs, and those of us who engage in media criticism can sometimes help shape media behavior, which has real-world political consequences. But politics is mostly conducted by asking people for their votes, and by organizing to do so. Cox is reminding us that writers and talkers, and in particular comic writers such as Colbert and Cox herself and those who find their work amusing, shouldn't take themselves too seriously.
Update Incorrect "iceberg" changed to correct "glacier" per a commenter's suggestion. Several commenters think the above is unfair to Atrios. I'm not cricizing him for being angry; Lord knows, I hate BushCo about as much as one can on an outpatient basis. I'm criticizing him, and Digby, for attacking Cox personally for her failure to join the chorus on this one occasion, despite Cox's well-established Blue credentials. As to "wanker," of course Atrios knows its original meaning, but he doesn't seem to have noticed its obvious inappropriateness as applied to a female.
Second update Atrios, responding to my suggestion that he tends to personally denigrate people who disagree with him rather than responding to their ideas, helpfully suggests that my criticism of his post results from my illiteracy. I'd like to thank him for providing evidence for my point.
In response to comments, I've changed "male chauvinism" to "misogyny."
I've edited the comments, not to remove criticisms of me or the post but in accord with our published "play nice" rules of engagement. If you feel the urge to read reams of obscene abuse directed my way, let me refer you to the comments on the second Atrios post. Most of the obscene abuse directed at Ana Marie Cox is in the comments to the original post.
(The "iceberg" line [glacier?] and the "greeting" to Scalia were the major exceptions.)
Oh, there were plenty more, e.g. the Hindenburg line. Though for me, the high point was the classification of the remaining Bush supporters as "backwash". Sheer genius.
Posted by: Allen K. at May 7, 2006 03:17 PMI don't carry water for either Colbert or the columnist-formerly-known-as-Wonkette. But I think, Mark, that the blog-o-rage and the column and even this post miss a couple of bigger points.
First, my own disappointment (and I suspect that of many others) comes not because the MSM said he wasn't funny but because he didn't get much coverage. ("Funny" is kind of a diversion.) Compare the air time he got to these two things: the amount of air time the bush double got-- and you have to include half of Timmeh's hour this morning too-- and the air time Ray McGovern and the guy in North Carolina got. I don't think Colbert got much in comparison, though what he did was in some ways even more in-your-face than what the latter two did, albeit more subtly so.
Second, very little attention was paid (at least I didn't see much that seemed to appreciate it, *even though* the "fiction" line seemed to get a pretty big laugh) to the parody of the press's modus operandi. It was vicious, and also accurate, in my estimation.
When Colbert talks about "truthiness" it isn't only bush's gut he's talking about. Nor is it only O'Reilly's. It's also the 2000-era "heathers" and "kool kids" who intuited that bush was a good guy and gave him favorable coverage for being "genuine." They intuited that Gore was "wonky" and "geeky"-- carefully coached by the bush campaign-- and they didn't like him (some of them have since said so).
In fact, I think there's a very good chance that this elevation of a gut-based epistemology is a deep game of the bush campaign that, along with continuous accusations of liberal bias, has aimed to destabilize the press and steer them away from discussion of fact. The result is that things you feel *ought* to be true are, for that reason alone, true; they're "truthy."
Chris Matthews was being "truthy" when he could say that "everybody likes this guy except for the real wack jobs" when the polls all were showing by then that in fact most people didn't and the trend was down. His gut told him that bush was a likeable guy, so it had to be so.
Now it happens that the WH correspondents' dinner is expressly intended to reinforce that dynamic because it's supposed to humanize everybody involved in using power for those reporting on power. In other words, reporters go there to be spun on a personal level so the political coverage will be more favorable. A "truthier" endeavor there never was. (All this trotting out of the bush double guy only confirms that view of the event.)
In this kind of environment, there is political value in saying true things.
I know from reading your posts for quite a while that you agree, even though-- and I agree-- it doesn't have the same political value as electing people on your side of the divide. But saying true things can help elect better people, and I also believe it is good in itself to say and believe true things. And I want the people on my side to be saying true things, rather than "truthy" things.
Was he funny? Mostly, that's the wrong question. It can be hard to make political epistemology funny. He got some laughs, but I don't think he was there to make 'em roll in the aisles. I do think some of the brighter newsies understood his parody of them, and I think that's why there's so much concern about whether he was funny. Shifts the focus.
As for Cox, my jury is out. Even when she was Wonkette I never knew what her position was on saying true things, and I still don't. To the extent that she might be pooh-poohing it, I think she would be off-base. And that she's talking about whether he was funny makes me uneasy.
The process of asking people for their vote is actually the least important part of politics. Look at the study of Fox's influence on the Florida 2000 presidential election for one example. Alternatively look at Ashcroft's defeat in the Missouri 2000 Senatorial election. You think the dead man was better able to ask for votes than the living, breathing Ashcroft?
Posted by: elliottg at May 7, 2006 03:51 PMThis is hilarious:
"Comedy can have a political point but it is not political action, and what Colbert said on the stage of the Washington Hilton — funny or not — means far less than what the ardent posters at ThankYouStephenColbert.org would like it to."
What the posters at thankyoustephencolbert.org think it means IS what it means, politically. Last time I checked, there were 52,000 of these people, and I suspect there are far less talking heads in the Washington press corps.
Instead of dismissing these people, Cox ought to be paying attention to the fact of their enthusiastic posting - not because they are votes for a politician right now, but simply because they're talking.
As of today, Sunday May 7, people on MySpace (not members of the political blog commentariat) were posting links/transcripts of Colbert's appearance on their MySpace sites at a rate of about once every five minutes. Over a week since the event happened. If you don't think that means anything, you're nuts, and so is Cox. (Then again, she probably doesn't know this is going on.)
As for political action, people see Colbert's routine as a political speech delivered in a confrontational (albeit sly) manner. Hence, a political action. Any reading of the 52,000 comments would make that clear.
Posted by: NYCO at May 7, 2006 03:53 PM"...seems to share with George W. Bush the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person."
Geez, Mark -- why start off an otherwise thoughtful post with a false characterization, guaranteed to anger the very people I assume you're trying to reach? I don't agree with a lot of things Atrios says, but he does have the occassional honest disagreement with others.
Posted by: PapaJijo at May 7, 2006 04:07 PMPassion is not the same as stubbornness. George Bush is a mule of a man, unwilling to budge despite his own best interest, at times, and definitely despite the best interest of the country he was putatively elected to lead. Atrios is passionate in his beliefs, but I have watched that passion grow with every Republican malfeasance. The question is how can you NOT be as angry as Duncan right now? The President and his minions in the administration have more or less taken the "what are you gonna do about it?" position when confronted with the fact that they lied us into a disastrous war. Half of the Republican Congress is apparently about to be indicted for awarding defense contracts to poker-playing pimps. The former Republican House majority leader accepted the largesse of Russian gangsters in exchange for access. Right now, the Republicans are deliberately provoking a confrontation with Iran in order to bolster their electoral chances in November. Is there anything these people won't do?
Posted by: Singularity at May 7, 2006 04:22 PM"[Atrios] seems to share with George W. Bush the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person."
I've seen other bloggers write the same sort of thing about you. (I'd cite a link, but I'm Treo-commenting.) I disagree with their assessment, and yours.
Moreover, Colbert was outrageously funny. Only a bad person could fail to see that.
Posted by: "Q" the Enchanter at May 7, 2006 05:22 PM"...seems to share with George W. Bush the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person."
I've been reading Atrios daily for two years and this has not been my experience. As for "wanker," I'm puzzled. Don't you know what it means, either conventionally (the original meaning) or in blogistan? Before Atrios started his Wanker of the Day" routine there was a discussion.
Twice in one post you have been not only condescending, but obtuse. The good news: most people do those separately. I would ONLY expect you to be condescending (which is rare) when you are also missing the point.
Posted by: Michael Connolly at May 7, 2006 05:23 PM"writers and talkers [...] shouldn't take themselves too seriously"
Yeah, that sap Shelley, claiming poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world - he should have gotten over himself.
When he wrote:
England In 1819
An old, mad, blind, despised, and dying king,
Princes, the dregs of their dull race, who flow
Through public scorn--mud from a muddy spring,
Rulers who neither see, nor feel, nor know,
But leech-like to their fainting country cling,
Till they drop, blind in blood, without a blow,
A people starved and stabbed in the untilled field,
An army, which liberticide and prey
Makes as a two-edged sword to all who wield,
Golden and sanguine laws which tempt and slay,
Religion Christless, Godless - a book seal'd,
A Senate - Time's worst statute unrepealed,
Are graves, from which a glorious Phantom may
Burst, to illumine our tempestuous day.
- well, Percy was always mad at someone, wasn't he? He seemed to share with King George the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person.
You seem to be hoist with your own petard here.
p.s. the "wanker" pedantry is pretty funny given what the dictionary actually says about it (hint: "usu." stands for "usually").
A simple point missed in this whole controversy: people laugh at the jokes their bosses tell, not those told by their social inferiors. This press corps laughs in unison at Bush's exceedingly lame and sometimes tasteless jokes because they believe he is their superior. Colbert's wit is much more the type they would themselves use (and laugh at) in private, but they don't dare laugh in public. It's all about sucking up to power, and they do it very well.
Posted by: Calling All Toasters at May 7, 2006 05:33 PMthe point of the poll about "whether or not Colbert's routine is funny" is not to determine if it is or not funny. It is to assess the reaction of the people to the routine. If you get an even split from the poll, then you'd assume an even split from the coverage of it would be par for the course. Before the blogs started to make noise about it, no one said it was funny. OTOH, the Bush double must have been hilarious from what I read in the NY Times. What the journalists wrote about the routine is a sampling of their reaction, the same way the poll is a sampling of the reaction of a wider community. Journalists voted not funny by and large.
Posted by: cedichou at May 7, 2006 06:20 PMI for one appreciate the clarification between "funny" and "ridicule." You are right: Colbert did ridicule the maladministration, made me terrifically nervous on his behalf (while sitting 1600 miles away...) and simultaneously spoke truth to power. The question is whether he'll be an inspiration for the congress or non-humorist pundits on the right OR left.
Posted by: PainterWoman at May 7, 2006 06:23 PM"...seems to share with George W. Bush the sincere and passionate belief that anyone who disagrees with him must be A Bad Person."
You know better than this. Shame on you. Not because you're a "Bad Person," but because you're a good person who knows better than this kind of one-size-fits-all cheap shot.
Posted by: Patrick Nielsen Hayden at May 7, 2006 08:23 PMwank·er
n. Chiefly British Vulgar Slang
1. A person who masturbates.
2. A detestable person.
So what's the problem?
Posted by: Phila at May 7, 2006 08:25 PM1. Watching a woman puke her guts out after having had 20 beers would lead us to believe she drank too much. An alternative view is that she threw up because he was pregnant.
2. Assuming that the poll was run to determine if Colbert was 'funny' misunderstands the meaning of the words 'reading comprehension'.
3. Insisting that your 'alternate' worldview is correct even when it is extremely implausible (see 1. above) reflects an extreme dissociation with reality or a misunderstanding of the concept of Occams Razor
4. Political action was IMPOSSIBLE at the WHCA Dinner - no ballots were open there. Only political humor was possible. It is Wonkette's strawman to see political action.
Posted by: cynic at May 7, 2006 08:36 PMthe objection isn't the whole unfunny line of attack. the objection is that the entire freakin thing was disappeared down the memory hole until the blogosphere threw a hissy fit.
Posted by: Dan at May 7, 2006 08:38 PM"with just a touch of male chauvinism"
Digby is a man?
Posted by: Jim Caldwell at May 7, 2006 08:42 PMAna Marie may have well-established Blue credentials, but she too often affects a Note-like quality of being above the silly partisan fray. Sometimes this lends needed perspective, other times it just makes it look like liberals don't really take this stuff seriously.
In any event, I think this post was pretty much spot-on, Mark. And I say this as a fan of Atrios and of Atrios' anger in particular.
Posted by: Steve at May 7, 2006 08:42 PMThe mainstream media are still the gatekeepers of information for the vast majority of Americans. The fact that they gave Colbert little to no coverage, and took great pains to denigrate him when they did mention him: that is what people are upset about. Cox's fundamental misapprehension of that fact is what earned her Atrios's "wanker" nomination.
The question we should be asking is, "Why didn't the MSM cover Colbert until the blogs made a fuss about it?" Whether the press thought he was funny or not should not be the qualification for airtime or ink. I would say a comedian ripping the president and the press, while he is standing mere feet from the former and in the same room as the latter no less, should qualify as "news" in a big way. But most news outlets were ready to pretend it just didn't happen. Colbert's biggest "mistake" was that he mocked and satirized the beltway press and their laziness as much as he satirized the administation. Cox not only missed that point as well, she actually did her best imitation of all the other beltway blowhards who panned Colbert out of narcissistic umbrage instead of realizing what a huge cultural moment his performance really was, regardless of their hurt feelings over it. Another reason she received, and deserved, the moniker of "wanker" for that day.
Posted by: v ole at May 7, 2006 08:46 PMIf Cox is such a card-carrying lefty, then why is she wasting valuable column space in TIME taking a piss on this widespread galvanization around Colbert?
If she thinks it's all ultimately inconsequential, then she can just let other people celebrate it and disregard the whole thing.
But if she wants to poo-poo that enthusiasm with her pal Joe Scarborough, and if that's what she's rallying around, all I can say is: Hey baby, if you're happy with that...
Posted by: Rod Munch at May 7, 2006 08:47 PM"...George Bush is a mule of a man..."
I disagree. He's a feather in the wind. Rove and Cheney are running our government, and Dubya is nothing more than a wind-up toy that they send out for photo-ops.
Posted by: cajun at May 7, 2006 08:48 PMBloggers are insisting that the press's failure to laugh at Colbert's routine was due entirely to the press's complicity with the Bush Administration.
Nah, they're insisting that they failed to laugh because they were the target. "Satyr is a kind of glass, wherein Beholders do generall discover every body's Face but their Own."
Posted by: ahem at May 7, 2006 08:48 PMRe: Ana-Marie Cox's well establish Blue credentials, I am not so sure. She seems to me like another Maureen Dowd, willing to give up her convictions for a bon mot.
Plus: it's fun dissing gawker, but she should disclose it was her previous employer.
Posted by: cedichou at May 7, 2006 08:55 PMOops...
http://www.nypost.com/business/65595.htm
"The mock newsman's standup routine during the White House Correspondents dinner, which set off a bitter debate among blogging wags over its comedic merits, resulted in the best ratings week ever for Colbert's eponymous Comedy Central talk show.
"The Colbert Report" averaged just under 1.5 million total viewers for its four episodes last week, an increase of 37 percent over the show's year-to-date average through April 30.
About two-thirds of those viewers were in the advertiser-coveted 18-49 year old demographic."
Posted by: mik at May 7, 2006 08:56 PMHey, aren't comments a hoot?
Posted by: Hal at May 7, 2006 08:56 PMDigby is a nice old lady. So I don't think she can be a male chauvinist.
Posted by: Hehe at May 7, 2006 08:59 PMWas Colbert funny? I believe that's irrelevent. Was he courageous? I believe he was. Are the reporters of the Washington press corps courageous? Remember the words of Elizabeth Bemiller who told us how intimidating it was to be talking to the President of the United States. Was Colbert intimidated? Didn't look like it to me. Perhaps the ladies and gentlemen of the press should take some lessons from Mr. Colbert. This is America, we don't have to be intimidated by our leaders -- they should be intimidated by us.
Posted by: grkent at May 7, 2006 09:08 PMWhether Colbert's performance in front of Bush was funny is beside the point, a red-herring to distract from uncommfortable truths. A trademarked Rove tacic.
And his humor did not cross the line as some have suggested. If George and Laura joking about missing WMD's and masturbating horses the year before didn't cross the line, Colbert didn't.
What is newsworthy about Colbert's performance is that someone got close enough to this president to heckle him. Respecting the right to petition the government is one of many rights Bush interprets to the advantage of himself and his financial backers.
Colbert: Speaking truth to truthiness.
Posted by: epistemology at May 7, 2006 09:18 PMI might as well point out that I think it is possible for Digby to exhibit "male" chauvinism re: atrios, and that I also can't recall Atrios disagreeing with someone without thinking they are a bad person. I'm sure his defenders can get some examples up since the entire site is archived so let's have 'em and put paid to that argument definitively.
But Madame Ass-Fucker's (a term I say with affection seriously) column is written in the style she uses when she talks, or that I've seen her to use: the most irritatingly condescending language you'll encounter this side of the political spectrum. Also what are her political credentials on the left? Wonkette was always more gossip than politics and it lambasted republcans because there are more republicans in DC.
I somehow doubt that Bush has never heard these criticisms before. I doubt he HAS and I think the Colbert thing is effective in more than just ratings (although more people turning in to the Colbert report is probably a positive sign for the country if they're not just all Daily Show visitors) because once someone has made these criticisms the people who hear them cannot forget them just because they were made in the atmosphere that surrounds the would-be king, and now other people can make them and even more can think them because Colbert did and he's still "safe." Thought might not be action, but discounting the power an idea can be a serious mistake.
Finally I found the actual speech mostly not funny, with occasional funny bits maybe 60/40 unfunny/funny myself. Much like his show. I've seen maybe 1 or 2 shows where it's REALLY funny and most where he's hit and miss like in his performance that night.
"But among the crowds a little child suddenly gasped out, "But he hasn't got anything on." And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said. "He hasn't got anything on." "There's a little child saying he hasn't got anything on." Till everyone was saying, "But he hasn't got anything on." The Emperor himself had the uncomfortable feeling that what they were whispering was only too true. "But I will have to go through with the procession," he said to himself.
So he drew himself up and walked boldly on holding his head higher than before, and the courtiers held on to the train that wasn't there at all."
Sometimes speaking truth to power can be funny, dangerous, and can break the ice causing all sorts of political fallout.
Posted by: jerry at May 7, 2006 09:23 PMLet's get something straight -- the bloggers were rightly [peeved] because the Sunday morning coverage of The Dinner attempted to disappear Colbert's performance altogether. Instead we were treated to innumerable rondelets of the stupid "Me 'n My Shadow" bit between Bush and his "double". Oh, how the hijinks did ensue on that one.
When the complaints about ignoring Colbert quickly became too much to simply ignore, the Official Commentators collectively went into Terry Bradshaw mode and declared "Not funny!". Andrew Dice Cohen sniffed from the frontlines of his WaPo column that Colbert was a rude bully, as if Dick Cheney and Karl Rove had ever been anything but.
Now, Wonkette's big problem here is twofold: 1)her blog career was built on exactly the sort of snide preening she declaims in Colbert; 2)her concluding tilt at the Senate Judiciary Committee windmill is, well, asinine. What in the hell does she think we've all been writing our elected representatives over and over again for, keeping careful track of every issue, ringing the bell at every occasion of mal-fee-ance?
Has she seen how many times the WaPo pollsters have studiously ignored requests just to poll on the subject of impeachment? But she'll be impressed when the Senate goes along with it. Well, ya gotta start somewhere, honey, and it useta be that people had to know obvious things like that before they got book contracts and stuff.
I guess we're all just supposed to wait around for the right time and place to critique The Decider, even though he's polled around 35% for what, eight months running now? Apparently all the "serious" liberals are quietly waiting for the numbers to drop to 10% or so -- and then watch out!
Note to Colbert: next time check in with Wonkette and Diceman Cohen as to what's acceptable, and what's funny. Some light-hearted yuks about Bush's nutty malaprops oughta salve the wounds of a great nation being lawn-darted by a crew of corrupt morons. Sheesh.
Posted by: Heywood J. at May 7, 2006 09:40 PMDo I hear the voice of condescending envy, with just a touch of male chauvinism?
This is one of the ugliest things I've read on this usually mildest of blogs. Attribution to motive when you have really no information to work with is just routine ad hominem - careful, or someone might mistake you for one of those uncouth, foul-mouthed bloggers.
Posted by: cerebrocrat at May 7, 2006 10:00 PMthe bloggers were rightly [peeved] because the Sunday morning coverage of The Dinner attempted to disappear Colbert's performance altogether
This is true, but the weight behind that sentiment is something that should not be missed. Some people think that the State of our Union is, at this point, dire enough that yukking up the malapropisms of the Chief Executive is like laughing at a drunk driver as he plows the car into a crowd.
And although this seems to have been the turning point in which Wonkette became Wankette, some of us knew that about her earlier (and I was a fan of her schtick) -- she hit the media spotlight during the 2004 campaign when ABC, I think, hired her for commentary (about as substantial as most of her ripostes), and she took a consistent Joe Klein role while allowing Assrocket to bring out every well-sharpened talking point in his scabbard against Kerry. Her willing compliance with this joke which presupposed she was providing liberal "balance" did not endear her to me.
Thus, she is a wanker par excellence because she is performing for her own gratification (and/or career), while Colbert, on the other hand, is gutsy by comparison with almost every other media person in that room that night. Courage might be too strong a word, this being after all a world in which political speech grants some people a hastier end to their life than they deserve, and to others torture and imprisonment. In the United States of 2003, though, we had the Dixie Chicks get dixiechicked, and Donahue get donahued, and before that, Maher get mahered. Colbert has corporate masters and a youngish show; it's almost certain that in 2003, for saying the same things, he would have risked near-certain cancellation. The way his bread is buttered, you'd think he'd know better than to make the Commander in Chief uncomfortable for more than, say, 12 minutes.
Basically, once upon a time we did think Cox was dependable for occasionally pointing out the rather naked condition of the emperor. Today it seems she'd rather be the one to heckle the man who says the emperor has no clothes, with the curiously politically-enervating argument that of course he doesn't, but commenting on it doesn't get us anywhere. Viva revolucion!
Posted by: Dan Hartung at May 7, 2006 10:13 PM"Rove and Cheney are running our government,..."
Small point - I believe you misspelled "Rumsfeld".
Posted by: cavanaghjam at May 7, 2006 10:41 PMI hate to be the one to tell you, but Atrios's post isn't about Wonkette's take on Colbert. That's why he's calling you illiterate.
Re-read the post to which you linked; you'll feel kinda dumb.
Posted by: Joshua at May 7, 2006 10:59 PMThe appaling solipsism of most Americans is really unfortunate. You're all so focussed on your own self-image and critiques of it and mostly indifferent to real insight. I hope liberals will realise soon that this is getting them absolutely nowhere.
For those of us in the Western World watching the disaster that is the US from outside, a post like this is completely irrelevant. As most of what Wonkette writes is, as well.
Posted by: Furriner at May 7, 2006 10:59 PMBasically, once upon a time we did think Cox was dependable for occasionally pointing out the rather naked condition of the emperor. Today it seems she'd rather be the one to heckle the man who says the emperor has no clothes, with the curiously politically-enervating argument that of course he doesn't, but commenting on it doesn't get us anywhere. Viva revolucion!
Yeah well, like the Green Day song say, another protestor has crossed the line, to find the money's on the other side.
Good for Wankette. Hope the gig pays well.
Posted by: Heywood J. at May 7, 2006 11:05 PMYou know when you go to someone's house as a guest, and one family member says one tiny, insignificant-to-an-outsider thing, and there's this huge familial conflagration?
'Luv Atrios. 'Luv Wonkette.
Let's take this energy, and keep our eye on the prize, which is taking both houses in '06, and not pissing on each other.
Posted by: Ann Cook at May 7, 2006 11:06 PM"Let's take this energy, and keep our eye on the prize, which is taking both houses in '06, and not pissing on each other."
I totally agree with this. I think it would have been superb if the SCLM had taken Colbert's handoff and just run with it. I think it would have been even better if paid "liberal" commentators and "liberal" politicians could have even just taken a single step forward and meekly opined, "What he said."
But honest to god, I cannot for the life of me understand how a 33% administration has all these people so cowed. Colbert handed them a golden opportunity to refine and crystallize their message and they all act like he pissed in their corn flakes.
What the hell is wrong with these people?
Posted by: Heywood J. at May 7, 2006 11:11 PM"the bloggers were rightly [peeved] because the Sunday morning coverage of The Dinner attempted to disappear Colbert's performance altogether"
Why should the Sunday morning coverage have included any mention of Colbert's bit? He wasn't funny, and he didn't say anything that we did not already know. I thought he was tedious this time, yucking up the obvious.
What was the big story the MSM was expected to report? That Bush was not amused by Colbert? That's not news. Bush is too vain and shallow for any humor that does involve a Baptist, a Catholic, and a Jew walking into a bar. He thinks bald spots are funny, as long as they are on other men's heads and he can point them out.
The dweebs who call themselves the "netroots" have gone over the edge just a bit here. They expect and demand conformity of opinion on obtuse humor, of all things. I'm pretty certain Colbert will be skewering THEM pretty soon...
Posted by: politus at May 7, 2006 11:19 PMJoshua:
At your suggestion, I reread the post. It starts with the obscene award to Cox, and a link to Digby's post criticizing her for her Colbert column. Having established that as the base, Atrios then proceeds to criticize Cox's book.
That part of the post starts with "By the way," indicating that Atrios's trashing of the book is apropos Cox's criticism of Colbert. The logic is "Not only is she a wanker for having written that column, but she's also a terrible writer." That's part of what I objected to: it seems that Atrios decided to declare open season on Cox, as opposed to just saying "I agree with Digby that she got this one wrong big-time."
So I don't believe that I misread the post at all. I'm sorry to deprive you of the pleasure of making someone else feel dumb.
Hmm.... so many people giving you polite, nearly unanimous advice about how you were incorrect. A person could count themselves lucky to have so many people looking out for him.
I wonder if you do. A reconsideration and apology would seem a good way to show you are more than some minor leech hoping to get a some hits by attacking a couple of respected bloggers through simple contrarian invective. The only thing missing in your post was "I know its not PC, but..." OOOOO look at the brave man, tilting at strawmen.
This is one of those moments that can define a man, Mark. Are you the kind of man who can recognize and correct a mistake?
Posted by: Mysticdog at May 7, 2006 11:25 PMMark: You didn't understand Digby's post at all. Digby is pointing out that Cox's essay is dishonest. The complaint made by Dau and Atrios was that the Washington Press Corpse _disappeared_ Colbert's remarks. Nobody asked them to laugh, but the gross dishonesty and essentially totalitarian operation of a press silence on the most newsworthy moment in that ghastly ceremony is deeply offensive to any standards of journalism and to any pretence of a free press. Cox's attempt to trivilialize criticism is, as Digby notes, standard procedure for a press corp that is an active participant in massive deceit. It's shameful that after all these years, people like you keep falling for the same crap.
Posted by: citizen k at May 7, 2006 11:26 PMIn the long run, those good songs and the good people they inspired prevailed over Franco.
Posted by: Kathy at May 7, 2006 11:29 PMI also want to note that many of us have had it with the recurrent attacks of the vapors that pop up whenever the left criticizes someone. The tedious gossip column that launched Cox's career was mostly famous for her repetitious leering about "a**-f***ing" (in her words). So what is one to make of your shocked reportage on Atrios' "obscene" award?
Posted by: citizen k at May 7, 2006 11:39 PM"Why should the Sunday morning coverage have included any mention of Colbert's bit? He wasn't funny, and he didn't say anything that we did not already know. I thought he was tedious this time, yucking up the obvious."
Why should the Sunday morning coverage have devoted itself to the tedious "Dumb & Dumber" bit with Bush and his "double"? Even the 20-second sound bites of that were tiresome. Whence comes this concerted effort to portray an incompetent, unpopular figurehead as a "good sport", and pass that off as "news"?
As for Colbert being funny or not, perhaps I could chalk it up to mere difference of opinion, which is fine, or perhaps I could be a jerk and opine that it just wasn't as hilarious as segments from previous years, of Bush looking for WMD under his desk, or Laura talking about W "milking" a male horse.
But I'm actually inclined to give your opinion the benefit of the doubt here. You have an implicit point, in that these dinners are usually stocked with the hammy, broad, borscht-belt schtick one finds on the corporate rubber-chicken circuit. This is an audience that was not ready for actual political satire, with an archly-crafted character that perfectly lampoons the self-important buffoonery of the likes of Bill O'Falafel.
Which makes me wonder all the more what they expected Colbert to do when they invited him. Haven't they watched his show? Was he supposed to come out and do the same vanilla genuflections to an administration mired in incompetence and unpopularity? Hell, they could have got Jay Leno to do that [stuff].
Posted by: Heywood J. at May 7, 2006 11:50 PMMysticdog:
"Leech"? You and I have different notions of what counts as polite.
As to correcting my mistakes when they're pointed out, I do so frequently. I don't believe I was mistaken in reading either Atrios's post or Digby's. I was substantially less harsh with them than either of them was with Cox.
Posted by: Mark Kleiman at May 8, 2006 12:13 AM"well-established Blue credentials"? Plural? I can count maybe her taking down Guckert (Gannon) live, but the second escapes me.
Posted by: ArC at May 8, 2006 12:33 AM**Running a poll to determine whether something is funny reflects a misunderstanding of the concept "funny."**
Mark : Did you actually read the poll which Cox links to ?
Do you really believe that it was in any way a poll to determine if "something was funny" ?
Cox is being disingenous in inventing this strawman of "a poll to determine whether, in fact, Colbert's routine was funny."
And unfortunately Mark you rightly stand accused of being functionally illiterate if you actually believe Cox's description of the poll
Posted by: Antc at May 8, 2006 01:09 AMAs to correcting my mistakes when they're pointed out, I do so frequently
Oh? I have yet to see you so much as respond to this. Perhaps, though, your lack of information and bullying tone were not as out-of-character as I thought at the time. As for your complaints about personal attacks and a lack of politeness, well.
Posted by: Bill Hooker at May 8, 2006 01:15 AMOn occasion this and other blogs quite dispassionately discuss questions of whether it would be a good idea to detonate large amounts of high explosive on or near particular parts of other countries. This blog in particular (and others as well) also attempt to keep conversation civil in part by doing things like editing comments so that a piece of strong language ends up saying something like "[peeved]".
There are certain things that happen to a human body when a large amount of high explosives detonate nearby. None of it is good. None of these bodies have undergone due process before their body is subjected to bombing. There is, you might say, a certain wreckless disregard for the fate of these bodies when you bomb other countries.
In the recent past, a large number of human beings have been subject to severe damage caused by bombs dropped on the orders of the President of the US, orders he gained the authority to make under very dishonest circumstances. He gained the authority to make these orders in part because those who wished to stand up to him were told they were not serious by people who would dispassionatly discuss the necessity of dropping bombs. And those who were right about the president and right about the war are still not listened to as preparations for the next war progress inexorably, and people have dispassionate conversations about whether to bomb, and therefore by extension, although it is rarely mentioned, whether to dismantle human bodies.
I'm just wondering where the real obscenity lies in all of this, that's all.
If you would like to do something about the way frustration is expressed in the current discourse, I've got an idea where to start.
Posted by: plebian at May 8, 2006 01:25 AMwanker.
Posted by: ethan at May 8, 2006 01:47 AMI have stood by the computer as several friends have viewed Colbert's performance for the first time - friends who have an active interest in humor and comedy - and ALL of them laughed a lot at it, between gasps of "I can't believe he just said that". And consensus on the humor forum I hang out on (populated by at least 50% humor professionals) is that it was genuinely funny, well-written and slickly performed. So, when I hear someone say that theyd didn't laugh at it, I have to wonder what the hell is going on.
Posted by: John Thelin at May 8, 2006 02:19 AMAna Marie Cox is the Zelig of the blogosphere and you stand up to defend her right to opportunistically morph. Which principle are you standing on, exactly?
Posted by: Mark Anderson at May 8, 2006 02:27 AMWomen don't wank? Somebody's been lying to you.
1) satire is political action unless you propose that speech isn't action;
2) Colbert's routine ranged from very occasionally tedious to pretty funny to hilarious;
3) anyone who doesn't find Swift funny is a wanker. That's a joke, mostly, but come on:
"I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed is at a year old a most delicious, nourishing, and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricassee or a ragout.
[...]
I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children."
People were snorting tea out their noses when they read that last line.
Posted by: weldon berger at May 8, 2006 03:07 AMRilkefan and Calling All Toasters make wonderful points. In particular I'd like to add to Calling All Toaster's point that humor doesn't happen in a social vaccum--people laugh, voluntarily and involuntarily, out of fear, embarrassment, and a need to go along to get along with their superiors. They laugh *at* inferiors when they can get away with it. But they never, ever, laugh along with inferiors when superiors are the target and they never, ever, laugh when they are being attacked by an inferior. Colbert's (to me very funny, but I wasn't in the room with the most powerful man in the world and his armed guards) riff was brutal. Whether people laughed or vomited from fear wasn'tthe issue--the issue is that it was NEWSWORTHY and the press coverage was minimal. When you think how people who protest at Bush events are and have been physically manhandled, when you think how Cindy Sheehan was removed from the visitors gallery, when you think how people have been barred from even asking bush a simple question at public meetings you have to admit that what Colbert did was newsworthy. To the extent that they refused tocover it, and then put their lack of coverage down to the transparent excuse that "it wasn't funny" (that, in itself, should have been somewhat newsworthy) is absurd.
And Mark, its embarrassing when a serious thinker and writer goes to bat for a press prostitute whose disinterest in the game of screw the people is only underscored by the fact that her husband was at the party in question.
Colbert's whole speech was, in effect, an indictment of everyone in the room for being "out there" when the rest of us are in prison, for drinking and dining while the country goes down in flames. So I wouldn't take the word of anyone who was there about the noteworthyness of the speech. That it was noteworthy,and funny, is something that those who link to the available online version are proving every minute.
aimai
Posted by: aimai at May 8, 2006 04:38 AMOh my god, I've just actually read the poll! Mark, you've been had by Anna Maria in the biggest way. Jeebus H. the poll itself is a parody of polls offering the reader two "altenatives"
1 and B which relate to each other in the same complex way that we are saying Colbert's speech relates to ordinary humor. Go over and read the poll and stop being such a whiner.
And as for the obscenity. I'm an academic (I've even met you at a talk once) and you are giving us all a bad name by blogging and then by whining that your opinions are not receiving the right proportion of invective to rational discussion. Sometimes good discussions include a little invective. And as for anna maria being subjected to obscenity--have you ever read any of her writing? That is her entire schtick. If she wants to be treated with the delicate shame accorded An Anchoress (insider joke) maybe she should stop writing about sex.
aimai
Posted by: aimai at May 8, 2006 04:44 AMMy husband didn't get a chance to see the performance but I printed off a copy of it for him so he could read it. He wept he laughed so hard and so did his 83 year old mom and 60 year old brother. They GOT the humor, as did most of the people who were not directly skewered by it. Those who were didn't laugh, they fumed as was readily seen in the rebroadcasts available almost everywhere.
Posted by: Loki at May 8, 2006 04:54 AMLamesville.
And talk about envy...
Posted by: db at May 8, 2006 05:00 AMAM Cox is a wanna be Maureen Dowd. She will bite anyone and distort anything for a column. (see dailyhowler for examples in the latter case)
Posted by: Eli Rabett at May 8, 2006 05:01 AMIs it possible that some of the people writing to tell us that Colbert wasn't funny are picking sides, whether they claim to be liberal or conservative? It really must hurt to have to work in an industry that forces you to restrain yourself so much that you constantly fear being shut out if you don't laugh at the "funny jokes" and groan at the ones that aren't. If you're seen laughing or writing about the jokes that practically everyone else who saw them thinks are funny while Bush and his minions are caught on tape with grimaces and scowls, do you think your access to those in power would be enhanced or diminished?
Face it fellas, today's form of journalism might not be the world's oldest profession, but it's definitely a subset of the one that holds that title.
Posted by: Philip at May 8, 2006 05:03 AMHey Mark:
Ah yes, Wonkette was bravely knocking those self-important bloggers of the left down a peg. Those nasty bloggers truly are failing their obligations to society. It's a good thing the 3 branches of the federal government and the most influential institutions of the press (our noble Fourth Estate) are all working like clockwork to make up for the failures of Left Blogostan!
And by the way, after 30 seconds spent on the internets, I found a dictionary of British slang that confirmed my understanding of the term from conversations with Brits. Here's what it says:
Wanker
Noun. 1. A masturbator.
2. A contemptible person.
3. An idiot, an incompetent person.
http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/w.htm
I'm guessing that Atrios is usually referring to some combination of 2 and 3, although Richard Cohen's work is clearly meant to pleasure Richard Cohen alone -- so that would be a 1, 2, and 3.
And what, women can't masturbate??
Google before criticizing something, Mark. Or at least have a citation that supports you ready to go. In other words, don't be a wanker.
Posted by: Sean at May 8, 2006 05:13 AMWhy have you not responded to the central point that everyone is making: that the debate in the blogs was about the lack of coverage that Colbert got, particularly relative to other performers at the dinner, not primarily about whether he was funny? Cox elides this issue (she writes that Colbert was covered "in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and all the major wire services," but provides no links in an otherwise link-rich column) in order to make a strawman attack on ostensibly stupid, humorless bloggers and their readers. Now, in defending her, so do you. This makes your piece remarkably unconvincing.
Posted by: Sean at May 8, 2006 05:42 AMdespite Cox's well-established Blue credentials.
Really? She has such credentials? Funny how they never seemed to show up in her "work" - whenever I had the pleasure of visiting her blog, it always seemed to be nothing more than an inside-baseball gossip sheet, and her TV appearances suggest that she has basically no grasp of substantive policy issues at all.
So if you could elaborate on Cox's well-established Blue credentials, I'd love to hear about them.
Posted by: spencer at May 8, 2006 05:48 AMI'd say both you and Atrios have, in this instance, demonstrated one of the serious weaknesses among many bloggers, and that is a penchant for absurd hyperbole, particularly when attacking critics. Atrios says you "kant read", and you say that Atrios attacks everyone who disagrees with him as "A Very Bad Person." Neither accusation is true -- either literally (which should be fairly obvious) or even figuratively. I don't see either criticism as being a fair representation of your (plural) body of work.
This isn't a plea for civility -- which I couldn't give a damn about -- but for accuracy. Both of you demean yourselves and batter your own credibility with attacks of this nature.
Posted by: Glenn at May 8, 2006 05:50 AMSTALIN used to tell this joke:
He was visited by a delegation from one of the small "stans", and after the delegation left he went to pick up his pipe, but couldn't find it. He called Beria, the head of the secret police, and said, "Could you run after that delegation and ask them if one took my pipe?"
Beria headed down the hall after them, but a few minutes later Stalin found his pipe. He called Baria and said "Don't worry, I found my pipe."
Baria answered, "Too late, half of them confessed to taking your pipe, the other half died in the questioning."
Mark, I laughed till I cried throughout the whole Colbert performance. Does that mean I have no sense of humor because, as you say, "Colbert's routine was deeply comic but mostly not funny?" I actually believe Colbert had the best jokes of any routine I've seen since Chris Rock's first HBO special. I'm sorry, but your attempt to categorize the Truth of what is funny and what isn't not only aligns you with Richard Cohen's unnwittingly hilarious column. Funny isn't a fact, Mark. It's a perception, and sometimes a consensus. And in Colbert's case, my perception seems to agree with the consensus of everyone but you, Ana Marie, and the beltway pundits (oh, and George and Laura). He was hysterical.
Posted by: Oliver at May 8, 2006 06:18 AMBeing condescending to a female doesn't automatically mean someone a mysogynist. That's silly, and ultimately it's doing exactly what you accuse atrios of doing. If you're condescending to one female for a reason other than her being female, it's perfectly legitimate. It seems like you're trying to open the piece with a bit of slander to make the rest of it seem more palatable. No thanks, next time just say you think he was a condescending prick without bringing actual bigotry into the mix.
Posted by: Soullight at May 8, 2006 06:39 AMAtrios is saying Kleiman can't read out of charity - the alternative is the literal truth - that he's running a dishonest strawman argument.
Posted by: matt at May 8, 2006 06:40 AM"So if you could elaborate on Cox's well-established Blue credentials, I'd love to hear about them."
Bingo. In fact, the only time I've seen any reference to Cox as a lefty is the self-reference in the Time column. At best, she's an equal-opportunity mocker.
Posted by: landru at May 8, 2006 06:40 AMCox is a gossip columnist, not a serious political analyst or cultural critic. It may have been unkind of Atrios to pick on a featherweight like Cox, but then again she weighed in on matters beyond her powers of observation and comprehension.
Kleiman's attempt to square the circle by creating new mutually exclusive categories of humor is a monument of wankery.
Posted by: matt at May 8, 2006 06:46 AM
Well Mark, this should provide a healthy spike in your hits.
Posted by: Doug at May 8, 2006 07:00 AMWow, Digby is a misogynist male chauvinist.
Is she aware of this?
Posted by: wtfwjd? at May 8, 2006 07:00 AMI don't count myself a member of the Atrios Army, but I'm a big fan of digby. I don't have much to add to the excellent analysis of your piece. I'm picturing you right now with your tail between your legs. (By the way, it's good practice to look something up before you tell someone to get a dictionary.)
Posted by: Terp at May 8, 2006 07:02 AMThank you for saying that about Atrios. I do not want liberals and progressives to become the mirror images of the far Right: rude, insulting, and logically inconsistent.
Posted by: Jonquil at May 8, 2006 07:11 AMNot sure if this point has been made yet, but here goes . . .
You said:
"Our little Wonkette is all grown up." Do I hear the voice of condescending envy, with just a touch of misogyny?
I'm not sure why you would hear either. Unless you accept that the moniker Wonkette itself has a touch of misogyny. The -ette suffix can be either a diminutive or turn the noun feminine (or both, which no doubt comes from its misogynist Romantic roots - think Smurfette or the Chipettes). Therefore, Wonkette would be a small Wonk, perhaps female.
So saying that Wonkette is all grown up might just be saying that she is now a Wonk, with criticism of that title implied.
The condescension you hear is the usual inference people draw from blogs - sometimes it's there, sometimes not, but very easy to find in a network of competing opinions.
Posted by: Johnny Pi at May 8, 2006 07:23 AMYou're not entitled to your own facts unless your name is Mark Kleiman.... Wanker....
Posted by: Alan W at May 8, 2006 07:54 AMAtrios wasn't saying you're illiterate, he was saying you need better reading comprehension. Seems to me you made his point.
Posted by: Fred at May 8, 2006 08:08 AMOK, so we've established that you don't know what a wanker is. We've established that you are not to clear on what "male chauvinism" is, nor "misogyny".
But this about sums it up: "Cox's attempt to trivilialize criticism is, as Digby notes, standard procedure for a press corp that is an active participant in massive deceit. It's shameful that after all these years, people like you keep falling for the same crap."
P.S. Since you seem to think it's an offense to Wonkette's modesty (*insert assfucking joke here*) to be called a wanker, being a female, I assume that you also never call a female a "jerk". Because it's pretty much the same thing.
P.P.S. I'm sure you're a nice person and all, but you seem to be trying too hard to sound intelligent; a few too many big words makes you sound a little bit like a, well, wanker.
Posted by: at May 8, 2006 08:14 AMKudos to Mark for being unafraid to challenge the left-wing orthodoxy that we all must revere Colbert for his daring performance, that if we didn't find it particularly funny we're crazy, etc.
Too bad that he thereby becomes the victim of unwarranted left-wing criticism.
Well Mark, there are some of us liberals out there who agree with you.
And no, I don't think that Colbert's performance was particularly helpful to the liberal cause. I thought we were trying to win back political power not piss in punch bowls.
Posted by: JR at May 8, 2006 08:58 AMSeveral earlier posters have already pointed this out, but the primary issue has not been that the press didn't laugh; it's that all the major news outlets maximized the coverage given to Bush's own "act" and minimized the coverage given to Colbert. The fairer of the outlets devoted a tiny amount of attention to Colbert's peformance; the most duplicitous (Good Morning America, for example, as documented by Media Matters) failed even to mention Colbert's existence. Failure to cover, not failure to laugh, is the "silence" to which the blogs have objected. Cox labeled such objections "whining" and Digby quite rightfully called her on it.
Admittedly, in isolation such criticism could be viewed as nitpicking. However the larger pattern suggests a clear pattern of complicity by the mainstream media. Another recent example includes the coverage of former Illinois governor George Ryan's conviction on corruption charges, in which several major outlets engaged in verbal gymnastics in order to avoid mentioning that Ryan was a Republican. Yet another is the MSM's continued pushing of the thoroughly-discredit meme that Jack Abramoff made contributions to Democrats, an error whose continued repetition suggests more than mere incompetence on the part of a lazy press. For Cox to characterize any objection to the continuing pattern of administration bias in the MSM as "whining" suggests that she hasn't been paying attention.
As for Cox herself, I've never been sure what to make of her: as Wonkette she seemed reluctant to enter the actual political fray, preferring to pick at the edges in the same way a gossip columnist might devote a paragraph to a socialite's dress while failing to note that she had recently killed her lover with an axe. I'd be mildly disappointed but not entirely surprised to find her, as Digby and Atrios seem to be suggesting, slouching toward Woodwardville.
Posted by: Dr. Wu at May 8, 2006 09:00 AMWhy can't Digby exhibit male chauvinsim? Being a woman doesn't matter if you understand male chauvinism as a TYPE of chauvinism i.e. saying something like women should be barefoot and pregnant is male chauvinism whether it comes from a male or female. I guess you went with misogyny, but I got what you were getting at.
Re: JR, I think Colbert's performance did help the liberal cause because he said these things out loud, live to the face of these people and is still fine, that means we can all say it without fear of retribution. He's given all of us a liscense to bash Bush and laugh at those who would call us traitors. He broke a damn of silence in public discourse. That's pretty useful.
I have still to see any evidence that contradicts Mark's view of Atrios.
As to the column itself, I said above that point 4 is wrong, I agree with point 3, don't really give a s*** about point 2 and found the assertions in point 1 tiresome.
Failiure to laugh is fine. Failiure to acknowledge its existence at all to me just says they are ashamed of their own actions. That seems normal, to want to hide something that not only makes you look bad, but actually makes you feel bad. Whether they laugh or not, I don't think it matters one bit. So I guess I mostly support Mark accept that Cox doesn't have any legitamcy with me. Even her skewering of Jeff Gannon was premised on the fact that he was pretending to be "media" when he wasn't.
Posted by: MNPundit at May 8, 2006 09:17 AMAlso, one thing to add in response to the "they didn't publish it" outcry. While I believe that they didn't do it because they were ashamed, Kevin Drum brought up a good point: how much coverage did it get last year? Was it that much more than Colbert? Are they really doing something different or is this just standard behavior?
It doesn't mean the behavior isn't wrong, but it would mean there doesn't have to be a conspiracy about it.
Posted by: MNPundit at May 8, 2006 09:20 AMScream MISOGYNY!
Shame on you.
Posted by: Sundog at May 8, 2006 10:19 AMJR: "Too bad that he thereby becomes the victim of unwarranted left-wing criticism.
Well Mark, there are some of us liberals out there who agree with you."
ROFLMAO! Trolling for Dummies, page 13:
"It is easier to direct opinion by 'pushing from behind' than by trying to stand in its way. So a basic technique is to pretend to be on the same side while offering up criticisms. Otherwise, the people who normally agree with your targets will perceive you as an antagonist and will filter out your comments."
The "the victim of unwarranted left-wing criticism" coupled with "us liberals" is a dead giveaway.
Don't you guys ever get beyond the first chapter in that book?
Posted by: Ducktape at May 8, 2006 10:20 AMumm - wanker is Brit slang, not to be taken any more literally than a Yank suggesting that a m***erf***er actually has intercourse with his, well . . . I think even one as thick as you can take it from there.
Posted by: at May 8, 2006 10:32 AMNobody ever dared question Caesar. But when Caligula roamed the streets he found the groveling bawdy lower class carried out sketches and plays on his desire to f*** sister.
Colbert could have been dirty and given Bush the kind of treatment he really deserved, forgive him for being civil and not lowerinbg self to Rove's level.
As noted, the bull-jerk jokeoff references of AWOL's equistrian massage tactics when noticed by wifey were not above the pale. Neither were the no WMDs chuckles that have no doubt had people at Bethesda, Walter reed and Landstuhl literally rolling in the aisles and Lieberman in stitches of his own.
Nothing to see here, move along. Someone who married up and obsessed a**f***ing thinks it wasn't funny at all.
A few self pronounced left pundits agree, eager to try and get their shot at a paying gig.
Lighten up. Try some lubricant. Alcohol based or otherwise. Apply it liberally to areas of need.
Posted by: Mr.Murder at May 8, 2006 10:38 AMCox directly benefitted (and still benefits) from the adoration of misogynists with her dirty girl shtick
(see Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler).
And what evidence do you have--you present none--of her liberal credentials? All she did as Wonkette was entertain the
chattering classes with a** f***ing stories.
Jaysus Mark, what'd'you do, forget the payment to the Duncan Black retirement party? And just WTF got into him? There aren't enough real enemies on the other side?
This is why the Left will never hold power--there is no Left. Just a bunch of internecine squabbles.
Posted by: Dr. Pedant at May 8, 2006 11:13 AMThere are three salient points in this discussion.
1. Press coverage of the dinner to a Pravda like extent, pretended that Colbert was not there. The MSM covered the dinner, depicted Bush as a humorous regular guy- the Friend of all Regular Guys as it would have been stated in the Soviet Press, and gave details about the Bush imitator. But during an unpopular and controversial war, a commedian stood in front of the press and President and took them savagely to task for lying the nation into war and mocked the press for "typing" rather than reporting. What Dau, Atrios, and others noted was that for whatever reason, "reporters" decided to keep their readers in ignorance of this fact.
2. Cox published a work of dishonest hackery in which she falsely claimed that complaints about the Press censorship were actually complaints that Colbert's act was not acknoledged as funny. She presented this story using a rhetorical device common to totalitarian regimes of ridiculing the "whining" of dissidents from the official line.
3. Mark's response (a) contained very dubious assertions such as an assertion that Cox had good credentials as a serious liberal political writer when she is actually only known as a writer of snide X-rated gossip and (b) followed the party line that dissidents are obviously irrationally angry.
I think that sums it up. Everyone back out to Hate Week where we discuss Emmanuel Goldstein's irrational hatred of our Way of Life and Leader.
M.A.R.K. was evidently a little itchy on the trigger finger, as has happened before, both Atrios-connected and not. Perhaps better to take a breather before waxing indignant ... have a drink ... who knows, wank a bit? (If anyone could be expected to be a proud, unrepentant wanker, it's Ana Marie Cox. In the more literal sense at least.)
Anyway, as someone who reads Kleiman and Atrios daily, and who read Wonkette back in the AMC days, I would suggest that all & sundry lighten up. (Though I do wish Atrios hadn't dumped quite so hard on her book: ouch.)
Posted by: Anderson at May 8, 2006 11:39 AM"This is why the Left will never hold power--there is no Left. Just a bunch of internecine squabbles."
Wha-? Ana Marie Cox does not represent "the Left." She represents herself, and nothing else. She's built a career out of petty, crude, and thoroughly uncivil snark, much of it at the expense of Democrats. At best she's a pale imitation of Maureen Dowd, but with even less maturity or serious political commentary.
Atrios' takedown of her was long overdue and richly deserved.
Posted by: Anonymous at May 8, 2006 12:28 PMCitizen K is correct.
A bootlicking media corps that makes a critic of Bush into a nonperson is pretty much classic Stalinism.
Bloggers getting mad about it is not Stalinism, by any stretch of the imagination.
Posted by: Applied Dynamics at May 8, 2006 12:31 PMAMC is defending her witless and artless husband as much as anything else. It's insider nonsense and you bought it, Mark.
You also used it as an opportunity to attack Atrios and Digby, which I find . . . interesting to say the least.
Posted by: Max Renn at May 8, 2006 12:58 PMMs. Cox has "blue" credentials? I think you may want to check the definition of "blue" ... or ask her husband. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
Posted by: Poster Toaster at May 8, 2006 01:15 PMI'm not here to hurl abuse at you. Not warranted. However, I've read both you and Atrios for a long time, and I wonder what drove you, seemingly out of the blue, to throw any rocks at all at Atrios?
For one thing, no, I don't think Atrios is always "mad" at someone. He has lots of comments & observations, many snarky, but I only rarely have got the feeling he's "mad" at someone.
You may believe that Atrios tries to provoke people and reactions. I don't know if this is just his nature or a blog strategy, but so what? You posts are often provocative as well.
I guess my point, if I have one, is this: why throw rocks at Atrios, who I see as a member of the reality-based community, when there are so many other targets on the other side? I've never really seen your blog as a place I would go to find criticism of other blogs on the reality-preferent side of the fence.
Not helpful. And, yes, OF COURSE he's going to throw them back.
You guys are both good guys, and if you have differences, work them out in private. Otherwise, stop it, please.
Posted by: Roland at May 8, 2006 01:26 PMI think I'll stick to the Investiture Conflict (advt.)
Posted by: James Wimberley at May 8, 2006 01:35 PMSorry, here's the Gilliard link:
http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/2005/04/dear-ms-cox.html
Posted by: dave at May 8, 2006 01:51 PMPeople use "wanker" over here pretty much exactly the way people use "jerk" (as a noun) back home. Which isn't surprising, since their literal meaning is much the same.
It's never been regarded as sexist to call a woman a jerk. It's just that these days people usually skip straight to "bitch" instead.
Posted by: Avedon at May 8, 2006 04:26 PM"Had I written Cox's column, I would have said some of that, in order to defend Colbert from the silly charge of having 'bombed' when a routine not primarily designed to cause people to laugh did not, in fact, cause them to laugh."
Colbert is a comedian. He told jokes in front of an audience. The audience laughed sporadically and hesitantly, if at all. That's what "bombing" means.
How about a counterexample: Let's say I'm watching a Dane Cook routine for some reason. I'm not laughing, of course, because it's Dane Cook. The crowd is rolling in the aisles, though. Now, is he bombing just because I don't like it? Of course not. Well, Colbert didn't somehow NOT bomb just because people who weren't within earshot at the time now think he was hilarious.
Posted by: Jim Treacher at May 8, 2006 06:37 PMJim Treacher: are y'all running a course on sad envy? Colbert generated so much public demand that CSPAN had to let google video offer it. (see http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/05/update_on_colbert_vi.html) and his TV viewership is up dramatically. That's called a HIT. Colbert's act was a HIT with the wide audience, no matter what the humiliated press corp has to say.
"Jim Treacher: are y'all running a course on sad envy?"
I'm not even sure what that means, so I'll say no.
"Colbert generated so much public demand that CSPAN had to let google video offer it. (see http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/05/update_on_colbert_vi.html) and his TV viewership is up dramatically. That's called a HIT. Colbert's act was a HIT with the wide audience, no matter what the humiliated press corp has to say."
That's great. Unfortunately, none of those people were within earshot that night.
I mean, if your point is "It doesn't matter that he bombed," or "Bombing was his whole point," okay, you've got a leg to stand on. But to just flat-out deny that he bombed? All that means is you don't know the definition of the word.
Or, wait. Maybe...
BUSH LIED, COLBERT'S RIGHTFULLY EARNED LAUGHTER WAS NULLIFIED!!!
Posted by: Jim Treacher at May 8, 2006 07:07 PMWell, the AH dictionary sez it "bomb" can have the slang meaning of "dismal failure or complete fiasco" - that's a good description of the Bush presidency (unless Bush really is being paid by the Iranian Secret Service) but Colbert's act was a triumph. The straight man is nor required to laugh after he slips and falls.
You may think of the Washington press and pols as the arbiters and audience, the rest of us just laugh.
The press corps weren't Colbert's audience, they were his props.
Posted by: Barbar at May 8, 2006 07:30 PM"Well, the AH dictionary sez it 'bomb' can have the slang meaning of 'dismal failure or complete fiasco' - that's a good description of the Bush presidency (unless Bush really is being paid by the Iranian Secret Service) but Colbert's act was a triumph."
Ah, Triumph! He would have been funny.
Posted by: Jim Treacher at May 8, 2006 07:52 PM"BUSH LIED, COLBERT'S RIGHTFULLY EARNED LAUGHTER WAS NULLIFIED!!!"
Hah! Now finally some humor out of all this. Nice one Jim.
Posted by: spacemonkey at May 8, 2006 09:06 PMI know what "wanker" means. But just to prove that Atrios and I both do, here is what dictionary.com has to say about this word:
1. A person who masturbates.
2. A detestable person.
I dare say that Ana Marie Cox is both of these. Exactly what about Atrios' usage of the term do you find to be incorrect?
Poster Toaster: *laugh*. Sure, if the capitalization was a typo, then I'd withdraw my quibble. AMC certainly does have well-established 'blue' credentials.
Posted by: ArC at May 9, 2006 02:29 AMThis is mostly not a bad explication, EXCEPT THAT ...
...OF COURSE Great Satire is not all hoots and giggles, overflowing with actual laugh-out-loud hilarity. The discomfort that comes from skewering a sacred cow or two, from political purpose, tends to step on the yuks.
But that DOESN'T mean Stephen Colbert wasn't actually funny. The two aren't mutually exclusive. Satire isn't a license for the audience to deny the humor at hand, but the compulsion to do so on the part of the Serious Person knows no political loyalty.
The Sense of Propriety of Serious Liberals is just as prickly and offended by, actual, functioning jokes, as is the nominal target. And that's always been a problem, and it always will be.
You can't tell someone something was funny -- even though it was. The Serious Person will deny this, even as they're put into their own grave.
LAck of actual laughs doesn't make someone "not funny." Which is a point continually overlooked. Stephen Colbert was funny -- and daring. The jokes made people laugh -- and smile. By turns hilarious and pointedly topical, actual laughs depend not only on political position, but on High Seriousness and the balance of humor and bloody reality contained in any one joke. To deny they were funny is to Cling to Denial more tightly than ever, like a life preserver on the Hindenberg.
I actually read someone complain that that joke was a mixed metaphor. "It's not even a good metaphor."
And Denial is the point. Stephen Colbert insists on having people -- both Bush and the Press -- listen to themselves. For many, the Social Niceties of the day are far more important than the blood spilling under the door from any one of dozens of the Issues of the Day.
One mustn't Cause a Scene. And so denying that Colbert was funny is a proxy for the impossible, for denying the import and truth of his pointed, inescapable and substantive barbs. It won't work, because it can't work.
Colbert was funny and he was deadly serious all at the same time, subversively so -- and that can't be appropriated, owned, or laughed off. Which is the problem. Those who take themselves seriously will never be able to actually take seriously the bloody seriousness of the issues they actively sweep under the rug. Mustn't cause a scene, you know. Must laugh at Bush's video as he looks under the couch for those missing WMDs! Now that's funny.
Ana Marie Cox's column was plainly very poorly thought out. There's nothing sadder than a socialite who presumes a sense of humor shown up by a Great Satirist in a social setting. Cox was shown up. That coulda, shoulda been Cox up there, laying into her Fellow Travelers: but even with an endless supply of priceless fodder, Colbert got there first.
And took down the house. The Nation was laughing -- and that's the problem for many. The American People came to that party and got their say in -- and then laughed their asses off as Colbert gave the assembled deniers and dissemblers a taste of their own medicine. He owned that microphone.
The dinner guests were so spoiled and precious that what they objected to was that the American public was invited to the tea party and that, this time, the jokes were actually funny.
It didn't hurt the humor-meter that the joke was on them. That was half the fun.
Posted by: SombreroFallout at May 9, 2006 05:01 AMKathy;
NO, they didn't prevail over Franco. Franco died, and he misjudged his appointed successor, the current king of Spain:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franco#Spain_after_Franco
There seems to be a general misunderstanding that people will "have what's coming for them" in the end. No, it isn't like that.
The only way is if we do something and give them what's coming for them.
Posted by: Paul at May 9, 2006 05:31 AMI think Colbert wasn't "funny" so much as "meta-funny," i.e. funny on a higher level.
For example, him telling the press that their job was to be scribes for White House talking points wasn't particularly funny.
The press, having been extremely offended by that joke, left the dinner, went back to work, and dutifully wrote out the WH talking points.
Now that's funny.
Posted by: Mel Walker at May 9, 2006 10:30 AMThe liberal media is attacking Colbert by saying he's unfunny because they are offended by his conservative views:
http://jonswift.blogspot.com/2006/05/liberal-media-attacks-stephen-colbert.html
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