Did you enjoy Comedy Central host Steven Colbert's address at the annual White House Correspondent's Dinnner? [video, transcript] Lefty bloggers hailed it while right-wing bloggers were busy browning their noses over the President's clever use of an impersonator.
How you react to the speech seems to depend on your view of the President... and whether you happened to be one of Colbert's targets:
Here's Colbert going after FOXNews:
Events can change; this man's beliefs never will. As excited as I am to be here with the president, I am appalled to be surrounded by the liberal media that is destroying America, with the exception of Fox News. Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.
Source: Transcript
Think FOXNews enjoyed it? Here's what a bunch of people nobody ever heard of at the FOX news show FOX & Friends thought:
Brian Kilmeade: We’re also going to talk about what happened at the White House Correspondents Dinner. The inside story about the Steven Colbert speech: Was it really over the line or is that just typical when the President goes to these Washington correspondents dinners?
Steve Doocy: [Referring to on-screen image] There you’ve got the dueling Dubyas. Stephen Colbert — I have been to twenty of them and he was over the line.
Kiran Chetry: What I was wondering though, because we did show some clips and at times it looked like the President was not laughing. Do you think he was annoyed by that or he thought it was not funny?
Doocy: He was playing a good sport as his body double was there. But shortly after that, the paid performer, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report, took the stage and did about 15 minutes and it was very uncomfortable. Personally I felt like he went over the line. Today in Lloyd Grove’s column, he says that Colbert 'bombed badly.' It was not very funny.
Source: ThinkProgress
Here's Colbert on the so-called "Liberal Media":
But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.
But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: The president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!
Here's Colbert on President Bush:
I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.
When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday -- no matter what happened Tuesday.
Surely, the President can take a little joke:
'Colbert crossed the line,' said one top Bush aide, who rushed out of the hotel as soon as Colbert finished. Another said that the president was visibly angered by the sharp lines that kept coming.'
I've been there before, and I can see that he is [angry],' said a former top aide. 'He's got that look that he's ready to blow.'
Source: U.S. News
Maybe not.