The Washington Post is my newspaper and Stephen Colbert is one of my comic heroes, so naturally I was interested to see what M. Colbert (seems only right to call him "monsieur" with a French name like his) had to say at the Washington press corps' annual Prom Night, otherwise known as the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. I opened the Sunday paper and there was nothing. Hmmm. Late deadlines, I said; they'll have it in Style on Monday. I opened Monday's paper. Nothing. At this point I got online and went to Salon.com, which not only noted the interesting lack of media coverage by the New York Times and my own Washington Post on M. Colbert's remarks, but had a link to the video of those remarks. I played it, and understood all. M. Colbert performed a brilliant comic feat, and a brave one, too: he told the Emperor he had no clothes on while the emperor (i.e. the President) was sitting four feet away. God, it was funny. And tragic. It wasn't so much a comic performance as an autopsy. Bush sat there looking like a man who was getting a lower bowel re-section (which, in a way, he was), and the press corps was sitting there as if a) they didn't get it or b) were afraid to laugh. I couldn't decide which, but either is pretty depressing.
Come this morning, I have the Official Explanation for why Colbert's performance received next to no mention, much less any real coverage, in our National Organs. The Post's Reliable Source informs me that "Stephen Colbert's cutting satire fell flat because he ignored the cardinal rule of Washington humor: make fun of yourself, not the other guy." Or, for those of you who, like me, have trouble decoding these Inside-the-Beltway rules, "The only person who gets to make fun of me is...me." Of COURSE. What a dummy I am, not to know this.
On the homefront: I walked into the living room yesterday and saw about six one-dollar bills scattered on the floor. "What is this?" I asked my five-year-old, who happened to be standing there. "My allowance," she explains. "I had to pay for breaking something." The "something" turned out to be a flake off her older sister's deodorant. "Rebecca," I said to my nine-year-old, "what on earth made you think it was okay to clean out your sister's savings because she scraped a tiny flake off your deodorant? Give her money back. Right now."
"Darn," Rebecca muttered. "Almost got away with it."