Hey, kids. As you probably know, every now and again, I read something that gets my blood pressure up high enough to require scientific notation to record, and the only thing that can bring me down again is to watch vintage clips of Stephen’s take on the issue of the day. Well, I’m there now, having read that The Washington Post, who continues to employ such factually dishonest columnists as George Will and Charles Krauthammer, has seen fit to fire one of the few remaining voices of reason and challenge they had on their staff: Dan Froomkin was fired yesterday.
Those of you who aren’t regular readers of Mr. Froomkin’s outstanding column won’t necessarily understand my frustration and outrage, but Glenn Greenwald has collected a number of illustrative links here and here and here. As he notes, “At a time when newspapers are relying more and more on online traffic, the Post just fired the person who, in 2007, wrote 3 out of the top 10 most-trafficked columns … Isn’t that an odd person to choose to get rid of?” Why, yes, it is! Unless … gee, could it possibly be that Mr. Froomkin was sent packing because of his willingness to call B.S. when the facts so required? Allow me to offer my congratulations, Washington Post, on completing your journey to irrelevance in my eyes.
I’ve compiled a few of my favorite videos of Stephen calling the establishment media to task and/or exploding the myth of the “liberal media” in an attempt to calm myself down again, and I’ve assembled them after the jump. For now, here’s my absolute fave: Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Watch Stephen Colbert at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner in Entertainment | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Bloggers | ||||
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Extra! Extra! Bleed All About it!
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Extra! Extra! Bleed All About It! | ||||
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| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The Word – Truthiness | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Ass Whomping | ||||
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Ms I, that’s terrible news about Dan Froomkin. I definitely wouldn’t miss George Will, or Charles Krauthammer. Thanks for posting these Klassic Kolbert clips.
After the WHCD, the blogger piece is my fave. “Ever since I found that out I can barely look at you,” always cracks me up. I wish I could see more of Jon off camera. I’m sure Stephen surprised him with the name, “Ted Hitler”. So, so funny!
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I’m using an edit of that blogging clip from TDS to start off my WordCamp presentation on authority. It’s going to ROCK!!
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Hmmm, trying to think which part you’ll use. “All they have is facts. Spare me.” Or “Post away, colbertkilledapanda.com!” Anyway, have fun at WordCamp. Wish I could go. Rock on, DB!
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That’s great DB! Showing a clip of Stephen will always get your audience energized!
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This is a TCR blog, not your blog. As good as your cause is, this is not relevant to Stephen Colbert related news.
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Hello, Maude, and welcome to No Fact Zone! I’m wondering if maybe you are a new reader, as you seem to have misinterpred this post (no pun intended).
No Fact Zone is a fan-run site that does mostly feature Stephen Colbert-centric news. However, we also do our best to bring information that other Colbert viewers might find interesting. Normally, if we veer off topic like this post, we find a way to bring it back to Colbert by showing the relevance in the story to what Stephen has done.
Because we are an independent site and not owned or managed (or paid for) by Comedy Central or the ‘Colbert Report’, we have the autonomy of blogging, well, pretty much anything that suits our fancy. Most of the staff, including myself, tend to like to blog a lot about Stephen. But on occasion, we will also blog about things that are indirectly related to Stephen, but of interest to the people who read this blog. Our blog readers, and Colbert fans in general, tend to be more in tune with a lot of what is happening in the mainstream media than the average person, which is why MsInterpreted featured the story. She found it interesting and felt that our readers might feel the same.
As for who owns the blog, technically it’s me. I founded it, I purchased the URL, I found the host. I do all the coding behind the scenes. But now with the new server being paid for by the readers who enjoy the content of this blog, I guess we all kind of own it. Also, MsInterpreted has been blogging for the site almost since its inception, since February 2007. She’s been a good friend, an amazing news gatherer, and she even stood with me as I met Stephen for the first time. I trust her judgement implicitly.
So please, understand that we are thankful for your readership, but on occasion we will bring news that is, in fact, not totally 100% Colbert. But we’ll do our best to make sure that all stories that we bring to the table are interesting and worthy of your time.
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*Blush!*
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Wow. You have so, so much more self-restraint than I do.
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Hi, Maude, Welcome to the site! DB has already explained things pretty thoroughly in her comment; I just wanted to chime in and say hello.
This isn’t the first time I’ve flown off on an editorial tangent on the blog, but I’ve only done it a few times to date, so I understand your confusion. If it makes you feel any better, I’ve posted more than 1500 times here, and all but a handful of those posts were directly Stephen-related. I tend to keep my private rants private as a general rule, but sometimes a particular topic really gets my dander up, so if I know there’s a relevant Colbert connection (like with Helen Thomas or after the FISA vote, etc.), I’ll throw together a “Klassic” post, and I always make sure to feature Stephen’s work.
Anyhow, hope that helps explain my thinking!
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“…the endless of path of self-pity”; the poor, poor Post, but now they’ve improved their situation! I just love Greenwald.
Hopefully Mr. Froomkin can make an appearance on TCR as a ‘threat to America’, or for a good old fashioned ‘nailing’.
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Ms I- Thanks for the Greenwald links–interesting and upsetting to say the least! I appreciate your counterbalance with Stephen [I mean, Ted Hitler] as it does help alleviate the anger and frustration!
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I, too, am sad to hear that WaPo has let Froomkin go. No, it doesn’t make sense. But let’s face it – any media outlet that continues the farce that Bill Kristol has any credibility left (if he ever did) deserves to crash and burn. Seriously – I find it amazing that of all the people to let go, they choose the one who was actually correct in his pre-war assessments and let people who were wrong (or, worse, lying) every time they delivered their expert opinions stay on.
Being wrong 100% of the time in any job gets you fired. The obvious exceptions are economic forecaster, political pundit journalist, or CEO (if your corporation is large enough).
Thank you for the collection of clips – they did make me feel better. But can I add one, because I just love seeing BK getting nailed so royally:
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/63216/april-27-2006/bill-kristol
(well – I guess BK was right once – here he predicts the Dems win the House in 2006 mid-terms. Unfortunately, that’s nullified by his prediction that this will ensure a Republican in the White House after the 2008 election.)
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Oh, agreed. That echo of Jon Stewart, smiling mischievously, chin in hands and saying, “Oh, Bill Kristol, are you ever right?” always rings in my head when Kristol gets mentioned. The list of people the Washington Post “features” regularly is pretty sickening (Ramesh Ponnuru, anyone?), so there’s a sense in which I’m hardly surprised that Froomkin was let go. But it’s still insane, and I’m eagerly awaiting the time when he finds himself a new home.
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Greenwald always goes back to the WHCD performance. I think 75% of the reason why the media hated that performance was because they got poked by it as well.
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And, with regard to the clips, the “Hitler-loving queers” gesture floored me.
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the blogging and war-time journalism clips always make me snort out loud with laughter! :)
also – I remember when the Yoo clip ran the first time and Stephen made that comment about shaving his head — my stomach actually flip-flopped a little bit, and I thought “Oh no, his beautiful hair!” Now it seems like such foreshadowing! I wonder if he knew at the time he was heading for a buzz cut. I’m guessing he did since it wasn’t that long before the Iraq trip.
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Re Gay Hitler – I love watching how long it takes Stephen to get Jon to crack up – esp. when it’s obvious Stephen’s trying to hold it together, too.
Thanks for all the clips, MsI – it’s the first time I remember seeing any audience reaction @ the WHCD speech.
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