UPDATE: YouTube is back up and here’s the deal…
My two videos of the Colbert performance are still up and available to view.
Most of the videos of Colbert at the Bush dinner have been deleted, however.
There have been a lot of CSPAN videos deleted — not related to Colbert. So, it would seem that they are fairly consistent.
UPDATE:
YouTube has now removed the Colbert videos (as far as I can tell) due to copyright infringement with CSPAN.
Almost a week too late, wouldn’t you say?
If CSPAN is worried about covering its costs, why wouldn’t they be on this from the get-go? Was this prolifertion of video uploads not predictable?
And if they were indeed worried about losing money, then why do they still have it streaming here?:
Will YouTube get legally slammed for this?
Will this make the Colbert story grow another set of legs?
Why, you may ask, am I taking the effort to write yet another Stephen Colbert diary?
Because, my friends, of this type of coverage the event is continuing to get from the corporate media:
After Press Dinner, the Blogosphere Is Alive With the Sound of Colbert Chatter
What does this NY Times article and Lou Dobbes segment have in common? What do all of the “post-blog buzz” MSM media pundits completely and conveniently forget about in their astute analyses?
They completely ignore one chief element in the Colbert story.
Themselves.
“Did Colbert go to far with THE PRESIDENT?”
“Well, Imus did the same thing with Clinton, you know.”
“THE PRESIDENT did not look comfortable.”
Look, you putzes! It’s not all about the president. The joke is also squarely on you! Not only is the Colbert shtick, itself, about satirizing the non-Liberal lazy incompetent corporate media in America — most of the post-Colbert internet speech buzz is also about the mainstream media’s gluttonous reaction to the lame Hee-Haw style Bush routine (which was anything BUT self-deprecating humour)contrasted to the tepid “should I laugh?” response to Colbert’s brilliant on-the-mark brave and eloquent speech that most of America believes to be true.
See the sharp contrast between audience responses in this video:
(click photo to view video)
And now, in case some well-intentioned reporter out there is taking notes, we are in the “post-post-Colbert speech stage”. The “blogosphere”, again way ahead of the corporate media, is talking about the complete lack of navel-gazing and off-the-mark reporting about “the buzz” in the internet.
We still savour the utter justified thrashing that this war criminal received from Mr. Colbert. However, I think it is safe to assume that we are now more angry over the audience that was in attendence that evening and the continued lack of responsibility that this audience displays by continuing to frame the story the way that it does.
As one right-wing pundit expressed in the video I linked to above,
“I just don’t get this guy.”
No fucking kidding.
Now give your head a shake and ask “WHY”?
And if any of you irresponsible coporate media sloths are reading this diary perchance — here are the direct attacks on YOU during the Colbert speech:
Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, okay? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the “No Fact Zone.” FOX News, I hold a copyright on that term.
…
And 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.
…
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!
Now, Mr. President, I wish you hadn’t made the decision so quickly, sir. I was vying for the job myself. I think I would have made a fabulous press secretary. I have nothing but contempt for these people. I know how to handle these clowns.
…
He then proceeds to a video in which the only reporter that gives him trouble is Helen Thomas. A video bit that comes complete with an embarrassing visual-gag for the media. Namely, the “Gannon” button. It’s embarrassing because Jeff Gannon, who was lofting soft-balls to the White House press secretary for a couple of years, was outed — not by the reporters who mingled with him for that time — but by an unpaid blogger.