On Colbert.

Predictably, Putz doesn't approve of Stephen Colbert's performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner:

I call him brave when he mocks Mohammed on the air. Until then, he's not even a bully. He's just a comedian, only one who's not being very funny.

So the only way to show courage is to mock Mohammed "on the air"? Ohhh-kay. And don't you love how Putz just tosses off not very funny, as though he is the authority on what's funny, though he never explains why Colbert wasn't funny, or what, for that matter, is funny. Colbert just wasn't. So there.

I got news for ya, Putz. Colbert wasn't funny. He was hilarious. And standing eight feet away from the most powerful man in the world, while you rip off his vapid, fabricated veneer and expose him as the naked emporer he really is, on national television, and in front of the press that has shown him nothing but fealty and deference for 6 years, while he's shown them nothing but contempt---I'd say that's pretty damn brave.

But Froomkin of the WaPost says it best (via Atrios):

The way I see it, the Washington press corps is still appropriately embarrassed that they screwed up in the run-up to war. Now, as Bush's approval ratings fester, they are getting bolder in challenging the official White House line on any number of issues. They're justifiably proud of a handful of great investigative pieces.

But they still haven't addressed the central issue Colbert was raising: Bush's credibility. As it happens, the public is way ahead of them on this one: For more than a year, the polls have consistently been showing that a majority of Americans don't find Bush honest and trustworthy.

And yet, as I've chronicled time and again in this column, (see, for instance, my Feb. 3 column, It's the Credibility, Stupid ) the mainstream press -- the very folks in that ballroom on Saturday night, the ones who actually have access to the president and his aides -- have allowed that fundamental issue to go unexplored.

What Colbert was saying about the guy sitting a few feet away from him -- and I think this is what made so many people in that room uncomfortable -- was: Don't believe a word he says.

Amen.