Mon, May 1, 2006

Just finished watching Stephen Colbert's address at the annual White House Correspondents' Dinner. Yeesh.

First of all, it's always fun to TiVo C-SPAN. I like to imagine the entire C-SPAN staff gathering for a congratulatory toast every time TiVo, Inc. e-mails them to say that someone has recorded one of their shows.

I love Stephen Colbert. You won't find anyone more supportive of him than me. I actually prefer his show to Jon Stewart's these days – if only by a little bit – because The Daily Show is often too silly when it's silly and too serious when it's serious. The Colbert Report is just right. Most of the time, it's ridiculously silly on the surface and deadly serious underneath. "Kidding on the square" – one of my favorites.

So, I was thrilled to hear that Colbert had been tapped to speak at this year's Correspondents' Dinner. It seemed astonishing they'd want him, but I assumed he probably had some direction from the Correspondents' Association about what sort of material was expected.

Apparently not.

It seems the WHCA just selected Colbert because his show has been going very well, and that makes him pretty hot. When you narrow the list to people with a defensible connection to politics or journalism, he's right at the top. They didn't bother to assess whether his material would be appropriate for the crowd at all.

Colbert delivered the speech in character as the host of The Colbert Report, after a few opening jokes ("Whoever's driving 14 bulletproof black SUVs, you're blocking in 14 other bulletproof black SUVs."). A good third of the material was straight out of his TV show's October premiere. He dismissed books and facts, preferring to operate "from the gut," and applauded the president for the same unwavering commitment to instinct. But whenever he veered into territory more sensitive than global warming jokes, the crowd wasn't with him. His satirical endorsement of Bush's ability to maintain the same opinion on Wednesday as he did on Monday, "no matter what happens on Tuesday" and his multiple pointed references to Bush's plummeting poll numbers were greeted with uncomfortable chuckles and lots of silence. (When he consoled the president: "Don't listen to those who say the glass is half empty; at 32%, the glass is two-thirds empty," he tripped on the setup and had to start the joke over – something frequent Report viewers may find familiar.)

It was great stuff, and entirely in character. He cleverly and incisively pointed out the same problems with the administration and the media as he does on his show. ("For the first few years after 2001, we didn't want to know what was going on – and you [the press] had the courtesy not to try to find out.") But, like a Bush town hall meeting, it seems Colbert's message is best received by a loyal audience. Playing to the subjects of his satire, the material fell flat, which threw off the timing, which made the bomb seem even worse. By the time he screened a pre-taped piece in which Helen Thomas chased him like Richard Kimble in The Fugitive, the audience was almost completely still. The spaces edited into the video to allow for laughter just stretched on in uncomfortable silence.

Colbert soldiered on, showing bold courage but lacking comic instinct. He seemed to expect a better reception, but I'm not sure why. Maybe the WHCA put him up to it. Maybe everyone thought, "If Stewart can host the Oscars, why can't Colbert do this?" It's a completely different event; besides, Stewart didn't host the Oscars "in character." Perhaps if Colbert had spoken as himself, it would have seemed less mean-spirited and the audience would have embraced him. (Personally, I agree that the audience deserved as mean-spirited a speech as possible – but it had to be painful up there for Colbert to keep going.)

There's some disparity in the reporting as to whether Bush and his wife were coldly dismissive or tersely congratulatory toward Colbert after the talk, but it's abundantly clear that the Colbert performance has a time and a place. And this was neither.