The Colbert Effect - Wow!!

If you do a search on "Colbert" on Technorati, you'll notice that most of the people now talking about Colbert are users of services like Myspace and Livejournal -- teenagers, housewives, and people who don't visit places like Daily Kos on a regular basis. The fact that his speech has penetrated into the nonpolitical blogosphere is pretty significant.

Even more, on thankyoustephencolbert.org they are up to over 51,000 messages and a lot of these people are now relating how they have communicated the story of Colbert's routine to people who don't use the Internet.

The weird thing, which we have already noted here by criticizing the MSM's ignoring of the Colbert incident, is that for the people in power (and their sycophants, the Right), this was pretty much a non-event. Nothing worth their attention, much less anger. But on the other side, "our" side, the depth of feeling is huge. This is the exact equivalent of what happens when the Right sends out a dog whistle to the Christian conservatives. The Left doesn't hear it. (And truly, I don't even think some of "our" people in the blogosphere are hearing the dog whistle of the Colbert incident.)

Regarding the Colbert speech being a dog whistle, I think something that is lurking underneath the surface is just what this particular dog whistle says to people on a certain level... the whole aspect of "access" to the powerful, the sheer physicality of Colbert's confrontation - in that he was actually in the room with all these people, 10 feet away from the Dear Leader, etc.

(emphasis MadCasey's)

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Knowing their days are numbered, those who run the White House made an effort to present Bush as a harmless and friendly idiot last weekend, when he did a clumsy "comedy" routine with a Bush impersonator from the Jay Leno show.

But those few minutes of moronic self-congratulatory slapstick between the Washington media and those in power were quickly forgotten when comic Stephen Colbert attacked Bush as a criminal failure during a 20-minute routine that left the gathered press absolutely dumbfounded.

It only got worse on Monday, when millions and millions of Americans watched the entire savage operation on their computers. The last thing the scandal-ridden White House needed was having half the country laugh at Bush's impotent rage as a television personality tore him to shreds for the disastrous war in Iraq, the 9/11 attacks, the Katrina outrage, Cheney's drunken shotgun antics, the awful sex-torture ordered by the sick administration, $3.50-per-gallon gasoline and the constant trampling of America's constitution.

<snip>