The Best Medicine

In the print edition of the Times, Maureen Dowd's column ran on the page opposite Rich's, effectively canceling out any points he might have made on the importance of print journalism.  When the Times cuts Dowd, I'll believe they are serious. 

The reason it didn't kill with the press is that they weren't expecting themselves to be the ones roasted.  They thought they were "the room" when they were just the props.  "The room" was the tens of millions of people watching at home who pumped their fists every time Colbert or Helen Thomas said something.

To me, it was a moment every bit as empowering -- of seeing someone saying forbidden truths right in the faces of those who most wanted those truths unspoken -- as was Howard Dean's famed "What I wanna know..." speech at the February 2003 Democratic Winter get-together.  That speech introduced Dean as a candidate for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination, and made it impossible for the persons who most enthusiastically enabled Bush's warmongering -- Lieberman and Gephardt -- to ever again have a shot at the presidency.

While I read some criticism of Wanda's barbed humor, I'm reminded that you should only give what you are willing to take in return. For years the right has been downright nasty to anyone it doesn't like, free in the fact that the left had nothing like the rightwing blast megaphone to counter what they said. Now the left is biting back and slowly developing a counterpunch to all of that nastiness.

I thought it was pretty funny, except for the "kidney fails" part. I'm a diabetic, and that tends to be a sore point with me. But I'm not running around trying to insult and humiliate a man with Parkinsons's disease, a President's daughter who doesn't look like Snow White, or spreading vicious rumors about a Clinton death list either. If you can't take it, don't give it. Indeed, the bill is overdue for the whole right-wing nut crowd for their concentrated paranoia and nastiness.

Was intended to sting to show how hurtful, dangerous and destructive Limbaugh's words and sentiments are that he hopes Obama fails. At the end of the kidney fails statement she asked, "how about that?" Limbaugh probably won't benefit from that line, but hopefully somebody on the "I hope he fails" side will get the point.  IMHO

I think my favorite part was Obama's address to Michael Steele!

I'm a journalist who thought Colbert's comments were dead-on. But so were Obama's at the end of the speech. The two men represented the two sides of the coin. As Colbert points out, when the media fails to do its job, the results can be disastrous. But as Obama notes, you can't have a successful democracy without a strong, effective media. It's not the media -- mainstream or otherwise -- are bad. It's that their mission is critical, and when they don't live up to it, they let us all down.

@carolinhouston - she illustrated perfectly just how overblown Rush's schtick is by giving a counterexample.  And it is about time somebody did this.  I don't blame the White House for distancing itself from her remarks, but now, it has been said.  Let's buckle up for "Wanda Sykesgate", following on the heels of Airforce Onegate and Mustardgate.

He should have made reference in his jokes to some of the things that have not changed, since that has become a common theme in the news.

-Goldman Sachs still runs the country, could have apologized to Dodd and Schumer for their unfounded nightmares that they may lose their banker-fed power.  Tell Phil Graham that you're sorry too.  

-Tax cheats can still be nominated to appointed office, but these days its all okay, apologize to Zoe Baird.

-Lobbyists and the conflicted can get exception to the no-lobbyist rules, apologize to K street for all that rhetoric.

-Nanny-state MADD leaders (who are MEN, who knew?)can be appointed to NTSHA(though thankfully his green credentials were too weak and got canned)

-Pot jokes could have stuck it to the net-roots, let em know where they really stand with him one more time.

Stuff like that would have satisfied some of my disappointment in voting for him.  These roast type speeches are usually great for letting a little truth slip out.  But it was a good speech anyway.