Colbertism

Finally, someone in the traditional mainstream media, in this case print journalism, finally gets it.

Doug Elfman at the Chicago Sun-Times has more than a clue. His May 7th article, Did media miss real Colbert story? is a perfect explanation of why I can go to a club and every young person I meet not only knows about Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner, not only loves it, but they actually compare notes about which site they watched it on.

For those of us who have long ago realized that any liberal bias the media might have, as endlessly whined about by conservatives, is long gone thanks to corporate news consolidations and rampant "journalist" careerism, here's Elfman with the 411:

The media's implosion of silence could be one of the final reasons many liberals use to not turn on TV news. It's not like they feel a vested interest in the industry anyway, since it has been bought and parceled by conservatives.

There is Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, that Pravda of GOP propaganda and breeding ground for Bush appointees. There are the networks' Sunday news shows that give more face time to Republicans. There are cable news channels like MSNBC, where Republicans have programmed the shows and hired on-air Republicans and conservatives-lite, from Tucker Carlson to Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews.

Ouch!

Elfman is primarily doing the media critic's job of telling the media he covers why they are losing business and what they might do to correct it. Since liberals and open-minded moderates are generally big consumers of National Public Radio, newspapers and potentially televised news, why isn't the traditional media covering stuff like Colbert properly? Must be ideological or power-driven, because even Elfman doesn't know:

To liberals, this must be somewhat puzzling, since the rest of the conservative media primarily sides with a president whose approval ratings stand at 32 percent, a whisker better than Nixon's before he resigned in disgrace.

Someone please tell Chris Matthews that el Presidente is not actually well-liked. Except by maybe a die-hard 31% of Americans.

Most importantly, Elfman nails why the rest of us are so happy, relieved, rejoicing about Colbert's breakthrough huevos grande performance:

It was perhaps the first time in Bush's tenure that the president was forced to sit and listen to any American cite the litany of criminal and corruption allegations that have piled up against his administration. And mouth-tense Bush and first lady Laura Bush fled as soon as possible afterward.

He fucking chased them out of the room.

Weenies!