With apologies to Willie Shakes: the press doth protest too much, methinks.

Was Stephen Colbert downright mean towards President Bush at the White House Correspondents Association dinner? Was his ‘act’ over-the-line? Inappropriate? It sure seems so according to many in attendance and others who have watched the video.

But is this negative reaction at least also partly because Colbert touched upon the failings of the press–of a number of those in attendance? The swallowing of and regurgitation as if scripture of the Bush Administration disinformation and lies is not something many in the press wishes to be reminded of anytime soon.
And here’s a reminder to those offended: we have a president, not a king.

Curiously, the audience applause was close to unanimous when President Bush did his ‘can’t-find-those-darn-WMDs’ number at the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association (RTCA). And importantly, it was the press that proved to be out of touch with mainstream America about that skit.

Even more curious, 99% of the mainstream press unabashedly bought the Bush Administration ‘mushroom cliouds are looming’ Iraq schtick and yet were able to simply laugh it off despite such demagoguery being the primary component of selling the war to the Amercian public. I guess as long as no close friends or immediate family haven’t been killed or wounded…

Check out this excerpt from a May 6, 2004 CNN article about George Bush’s performance at the 60th annual dinner of the RTCA:

    WASHINGTON (CNN) — What was meant by President Bush to be a joke about the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has brought little laughter to some Americans.

    During the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner this week, Bush presented a slide show of quirky photographs from inside the White House. In one, the president is looking under furniture in the Oval Office.

    “Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere,” Bush joked. “Nope, no weapons over there … maybe under here?”

Or this excerpt:

    Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
    March 30, 2004

    When presidents appear appear at the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner, it’s traditional for them to tell a few jokes.  But when George W. Bush appeared last week (3/24/04), he made a series of “jokes” about the failure to find the weapons of mass destruction that had been the central justification of his invasion of Iraq.  Part of Bush’s routine included slides showing administration officials looking around the White House for something. “Those weapons of mass destruction must be somewhere,” Bush explained while showing one of the images, which elicited laughter from the audience of politicians and media figures.

    Interestingly, Bush’s comments were hardly controversial to the Beltway press corps, which seemed to write it off as harmlessly “self-deprecating” humor.  Many of the press accounts the next day did not raise questions about Bush’s humorous reference to his administration’s bogus rationale for a war that has cost thousands of lives– American and Iraqi.  For the media, such humor was expected.  “Well, every night we hear people on TV telling jokes about President Bush, but last night it was the president’s turn to tell jokes about the president,” CBS anchor Julie Chen explained (3/25/04), adding that “at least someone’s making jokes about it other than the late-night talk show hosts.”

    CNN’s American Morning show on March 25 provided a glimpse at the gulf between the media reaction and the public response to Bush’s sense of humor.  After playing some clips from Bush’s speech, CNN anchor Bill Hemmer mentioned that “there was a slideshow shown a little later. Maybe we’ll get to that later in our broadcast.  There were some good funny lines in that, too.”

    But once CNN aired Bush’s weapons jokes, its audience saw what the anchors and correspondents missed.  CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien announced that the program was getting a surprisingly negative stream of emails from viewers, and asked Hemmer what the reaction at the dinner had been. He explained:

    “I think the reception was pretty receptive, for lack of a better phrase. I can understand what you’re hearing.  There was a little rumbling about whether or not it was sensitive enough to the reality that we all know two and a half years later, also with the situation in Iraq as well.  But overall, I think it was a speech that was given a way where the presidenttried to show a sense of humor, and I think, for the most part, it was taken that way.”  As the morning wore on, CNN co-anchor Jack Cafferty read numerous messages from outraged viewers, and characterized the reaction as “overwhelmingly” negative…

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