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Now you can see the expressions on the faces very well

I gues you're a bigger fan of the kind of humor George W. Bush used a couple of years ago, pretending to look everywhere for the "missing" WMD that he had killed thousands of people over.

Don Imus was far more savage to Bill Clinton, and the media loved it. When did you change your mind about insulting the president?

You're right, jokes about a guy who makes a mistake that kills thousands of people are funny. Laura Bush's jokes about Mr. Bush masturbating a horse, comedy gold.

The truth about incompetence, don't wanna HEAR it. Can't we talk about masturbating horses or killing people by mistake?

He has a regular television show from which he may pontificate at his leisure free from any threat of imprisonment. Let him make his speeches there.

Let him make his speehes anywhere people will pay him to do so. They hired him for the show, and they got exactly what he does on TV. What did they expect?

1)

Satire: "Irony, sarcasm, or caustic wit used to attack or expose folly, vice, or stupidity."

I'm not claiming that Colbert's attacks are founded, but they were attacks, and they were made using a technique commonly referred to as satire. For instance, consider the following:

"Wow, wow, what an honor. The White House correspondents' dinner. To just sit here, at the same table with my hero, George W. Bush, to be this close to the man…my name is Stephen Colbert and it's my privilege tonight to celebrate our president. He's not so different, he and I. We get it. We're not brainiacs on the nerd patrol. We're not members of the factinista. We go straight from the gut, right sir? That's where the truth lies, right down here in the gut…Every night on my show, the Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut…I'm a simple man with a simple mind, with a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states."

There is a perception, which may or may not be accurate, that President Bush prefers to trust his instincts over possibly contradictory facts. Through the use of irony and particularly sarcasm, Colbert criticizes this practice. Whether or not he should have done so, or did so effectively or fairly, this was an instance of satire. Your assessment that he "basically just said 'George Bush, you’re a liar. Media people? You’re fawning lapdogs'" is unfair. He did not basically say that. He may have been trying to make that point, but he did so through SATIRE. Possibly bad satire, but satire nonetheless.

2)

"For all the leftist panic about fascism and theocracies and dissent being stifled, we’ve not throw one dissident in prison, not jailed one newspaper editor for publishing something disagreeable (even though we probably should for committing a willful act of espionage), not exiled one single citizen for doing what Colbert did. In fact, calling Bush a Nazi rakes in the big bucks, as groups like moveon.org and Senators like Dick Durbin have found out recently."

I'm not exactly sure what your point was here. Where in his speech did Colbert assert the President Bush is a Nazi? I make no claim that his courage is on the same level as those who risk life and limb to stand up to people they disagree with, but it is still a form of courage. A lesser form of it, but still courage. The fact that calling Bush a Nazi is absurd is irrelevant. Colbert disagrees with President Bush. He believes we are at war because of an intentional lie. He believes it is wrong to illegally wiretap American citizens. He does not seem to believe that George Bush is a Nazi. So why does it matter that other people, who may agree with some of Colbert's assertions, do?

3)

"He was boorish and insulting in a venue where it was far from warranted. He has a regular television show from which he may pontificate at his leisure free from any threat of imprisonment. Let him make his speeches there."

What exactly was Colbert supposed to do here? He wasn't a gate-crasher, he didn't force his way on to the stage, he was invited to speak. Is he supposed to play nice because that's what other people want? I'm having trouble articulating my point, so I'll use an analogy. To an evangelical christian, it is his or her responsibility to convert non-christians to christianity. Otherwise, they will go to hell. Should they refrain from this duty for the sake of decorum? Because it makes other people uncomfortable? If you believe that abortion is murder, it's morally reprehensible not to oppose it, in the same way that it's morally reprehensible not to oppose the murder of an adult. So why should Colbert, when given the chance, refrain from criticizing a man whom he believes to be acting immorally? Because it's impolite? If you believe that we are fighting a war that we should not be because the President tricked us, shouldn't you stand up for your belief? You might be wrong, but it's the duty of the people who know that to correct your beliefs.

To summarize: Steven Colbert is a gadfly. Possibly an idiotic gadfly, but that is no fault of his. Gadflies are good. They are neccessary. That doesn't make them correct, but it doesn't mean they should stop.

To me it just looked like an infantile tirade against the president; a man displaying his ability to get in some licks without regard to civility or decorum. But who hasn't had a few too many, or gotten a little too full of himself and said or done mean and hurtful things? Who hasn't played the bully at least once? I once put a small, frail, white haired bespectacled senior supply sergeant who was not especially well liked and was known for being mean-spirited and petty into a head lock at his retirement party while his wife and children looked on, much to his humiliation and to the horror and shame of everybody there. Did that qualify as comic genius? Sure didn't feel like it.

Maybe that's it – maybe some people who don't have the fortitude to step out of character and live out their fantasy of inflicting some pain vicariously got a thrill from seeing Colbert's "frail egghead" persona bully a man known for his "cowboy" persona, and for the guy to have to sit there and take it. Wow, man bullies another man publicly and in front of his wife and everybody he cares about, to the horror and shock of everybody there. Pure comic genius.

Maybe you and I understand the word differently but he basically just said "George Bush, you're a liar. Media people? You're fawning lapdogs", and that was really all he did. He didn't do it especially cleverly. He didn't even do it from behind the veneer of civil dissent.

I do dismiss his courage, because it's painfully easy these days to say, even to the President's face, that he's an idiot. For all the leftist panic about fascism and theocracies and dissent being stifled, we've not throw one dissident in prison, not jailed one newspaper editor for publishing something disagreeable (even though we probably should for committing a willful act of espionage), not exiled one single citizen for doing what Colbert did. In fact, calling Bush a Nazi rakes in the big bucks, as groups like moveon.org and Senators like Dick Durbin have found out recently.

So where, exactly, is the courage here?

You ask me not to dismiss him, but I, as a rational and resonable person, can do nothing but. He was boorish and insulting in a venue where it was far from warranted. He has a regular television show from which he may pontificate at his leisure free from any threat of imprisonment. Let him make his speeches there.