Swami Froomkin

Dan Froomkin on Wednesday:

The traditional media's first reaction to satirist Stephen Colbert's uncomfortably harsh mockery of President Bush and the press corps at Saturday night's White House Correspondents Association dinner was largely to ignore it [...]

Now the mainstream media is back with its second reaction: Colbert just wasn't funny.

Yes, it turns out Colbert has brought the White House and its press corps together at long last, creating a sense of solidarity rooted in something they have in common: Neither of them like being criticized.

The headline in the Op-ed column on Thursday:

So Not Funny

And if anyone speaks for the mainstream media, it's Richard Cohen.

By the way, Cohen wants you to know he's a funny guy:

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" -- as if the deed could be done on demand.

When someone, in the first sentence of an article, tells you they're a "funny guy," you immediately know two things: (a) he's not funny, and (b) he's not a good writer.

He also hated one joke because "it's a mixed metaphor," when that was the point of the joke.

The Editors give this guy a proper burial, but let me just add one thing. Cohen says "Colbert was not funny." If he were honest he'd say "Colbert was not funny to me." And, seeing as you and your counterparts in the media who've acted like stenographers and suck-ups to the throne over the last five years were the butt of the joke, color me unsurprised. Colbert did the same thing onstage that he does every night on TV. You bizarrely enjoy it there, but when confronted with it in the face, you don't like it. Color me unsurprised.

Note: I can't believe we're still talking about this on Thursday, a week later. Maybe Ray McGovern calling Rummy a liar to his face will change the conversation.