Bloggers Still Discussing Colbert's White House Correspondent's Speech

Posted on May 5, 2006

Six days after his speech Stephen Colbert still owns the top two Technorati search results. More and more people are listening to Colbert's speech and blogging about it. Technorati's Lizz Dunn has a post (link no longer available) on Technorati's blog that describes the blogstorm over Colbert's speech and the slow reaction from the mainstream media. Lizz says, "'Stephen Colbert' and 'Colbert' have been the top Technorati searches all week, which is a nice real-life example of how mainstream media and the blogosphere are so different."

Lizz Dunn also says, "Stephen Colbert delivered a speech at the White House Correspondent's Dinner last weekend, in the persona of the right- wing, anti-liberal press 'talking head' that he plays on his nightly television show on Comedy Central. Standing just a few feet away from President George W. Bush, Colbert skewered the current administration, the President, and the press corps. While the mainstream media properties were pointedly silent about the speech, bloggers were busy commenting about the speech, uploading video clips of the speech, and transcribing it word for word."

Not all of the press was slow to respond. USA Today gave a quick response to Colbert's speech. By Wednesday there were articles coming from many major newspapers including the New York Times which covered the reaction in the blogosphere. Below are some recent highlights from the blogosphere.

Colbert now a Verb: Colberted. Colbert is now being used as a verb to indicate when someone presents facts to the Bush administration.

Enthralled Katie at MySpace asks, "Did he really just SAY that? This speech, supposedly by Stephen Colbert and said in front of President Bush, is hilarious. I hope it's true." Not everyone in the blogosphere is familiar with the White House Correspondents Dinner. Outside of the media the event doesn't really get much play. That has clearly changed this year thanks to Stephen Colbert, blogs and video sharing tools like YouTube.com.

The Carpetbagger Report responds to WaPO's Richard Cohen article where he claims to be funnier than Colbert: "And with this, Colbert-gate has jumped the shark. Or rather, the political establishment's analysis of the story has."

Liquidmatrix: "I have to admit I was so-so on the humour of Stephen Colbert. But, after having seen the speech that he delivered at the White House Correspondent's Dinner I'm a HUGE fan. I was a little confused when the major print media failed to make any mention of this speech. It was like it had never happened."

YouTube conspiracy theories? Boing Boing has a post asking why the videos were removed from YouTube. Were there other reasons besides a C-SPAN request?

BlogCritics thinks the real target of Colbert's speech was the media: "Colbert told the media, rather blatantly, that they weren't doing their jobs. They weren't keeping America informed of rather important events, such as Bush's tax cuts to the rich, WMD intelligence and the effects of global warming. He sarcastically said 'We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out.' He is dead on."