actually, bizarre as it is, I thought Colbert did a passable job, helped by the fact that Greenwald couldn’t keep a straight face. I can see someone without a sense of humour thinking it was for real (I stopped 75% of the way in, but preume there was no clear giveaway). Me, I’m out of it enough not really to know who Colbert is, and the character he played was more rational than 99% of all known right-wing TV hosts. Ah, maybe that was the giveaway.
Fantastic! Of course, there’s also this: http://www.censurecarter.com — which I caught on CNN yesterday over lunch and thought could only be a skit from Saturday Night Live.
Well, let the wingnuts continue to show their true stripes–and cross your fingers that this isn’t way too many Americans showing theirs in the Janus-worthy laugh/cry fest that is our current political scene.
I’m less convinced that this was as stupid as it sounds. Think Progress has a screen shot of the email. It says, “… Robert Greenwald … crashed and burned on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report … when promoting his new attack on Delay. He even admits their reason for producing the movie … – to keep Republicans from gaining power in Congressional seats across the country.”
I read that as, “he’s a partisan, not a documentary maker, and he admits it.”
Since when are “partisan” and “documentary maker” mutually exclusive? How many people make a documentary but have no opinion on the subject of the film?
Let’s face it, DeLay only ever had two kinds of supporters: the stupid and the cynical. It’s stupid to mistake Colbert’s satire for genuine journalism. It’s cynical to expect that people would be so stupid that they would not only make that mistake, but contribute money to a greasy politician’s legal defense fund on the basis of that mistake. It’s a marriage made in heaven, really.
This just proves that taking a few literature/rhetoric classes in college would help wingnuts differentiate between satire of propaganda and propaganda.
Literature and Rhetoric Departments take heart! There is an application of what we teach!
{ 8 comments }
harry b 05.24.06 at 4:27 pm
actually, bizarre as it is, I thought Colbert did a passable job, helped by the fact that Greenwald couldn’t keep a straight face. I can see someone without a sense of humour thinking it was for real (I stopped 75% of the way in, but preume there was no clear giveaway). Me, I’m out of it enough not really to know who Colbert is, and the character he played was more rational than 99% of all known right-wing TV hosts. Ah, maybe that was the giveaway.
joel turnipseed 05.24.06 at 4:52 pm
Fantastic! Of course, there’s also this: http://www.censurecarter.com — which I caught on CNN yesterday over lunch and thought could only be a skit from Saturday Night Live.
Well, let the wingnuts continue to show their true stripes–and cross your fingers that this isn’t way too many Americans showing theirs in the Janus-worthy laugh/cry fest that is our current political scene.
jim 05.24.06 at 4:55 pm
Like goldy or bronzy?
Backword Dave 05.25.06 at 4:31 am
I’m less convinced that this was as stupid as it sounds. Think Progress has a screen shot of the email. It says, “… Robert Greenwald … crashed and burned on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report … when promoting his new attack on Delay. He even admits their reason for producing the movie … – to keep Republicans from gaining power in Congressional seats across the country.”
I read that as, “he’s a partisan, not a documentary maker, and he admits it.”
KCinDC 05.25.06 at 9:17 am
Since when are “partisan” and “documentary maker” mutually exclusive? How many people make a documentary but have no opinion on the subject of the film?
omar shanks 05.25.06 at 11:15 am
Let’s face it, DeLay only ever had two kinds of supporters: the stupid and the cynical. It’s stupid to mistake Colbert’s satire for genuine journalism. It’s cynical to expect that people would be so stupid that they would not only make that mistake, but contribute money to a greasy politician’s legal defense fund on the basis of that mistake. It’s a marriage made in heaven, really.
catherine liu 05.25.06 at 11:21 am
This just proves that taking a few literature/rhetoric classes in college would help wingnuts differentiate between satire of propaganda and propaganda.
Literature and Rhetoric Departments take heart! There is an application of what we teach!
Robin 05.26.06 at 4:57 pm
Is anyone surprised?
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