One of our all-time favorite shows went off the air last night. The brilliant satire "The Colbert Report" wrapped after 9 years and hundreds of hours of delightful, politically-savvy entertainment. Fortunately, at least for now, you can enjoy the show in retrospect at the Colbert Report web site (thecolbertreport.cc.com/videos). In the meantime, here's the finale of last night's show, replete with dozens of celebrity guests*.
One last note for now. A long-lasting impression of Colbert came not from "The Colbert Report," but from when he hosted (for the first and last time) a White House Correspondent's Dinner back in 2006. As Colbert would say, he had the big brass balls to skewer then-Preznit George Dumbya Bush sitting right next to him and, even better, his hosts and audience --the intrepid
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 them through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you’ve 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!To the Republican-wired Beltway Media Kool Kids, Dumbya was "The Decider," leader of men! President Obama, contrary to what you would hear from the referee-playing right-wing noise machine, never got the breaks Dumbya did.
We can only hope Colbert finds a way to keep spearing the nitwits, bloated egos, and phony pols from his new perch at CBS come next spring.
* BONUS: Forbes has a list of the dozens of celebrities who were in the grand finale. Quite a melange of folks.
