Hey Richard Cohen, Write Something Stupid!

First, let me state my credentials: I, seenos, write commentary for a blog. This is my standing for stating that Richard Cohen is a pea brain when it comes to writing commentary for the Washington Post.

In his analysis of Stephen Colbert’s recent performance, Cohen begins with a similar contention, and then he expects me to believe he is more qualified to tell me what’s funny than I am in deciding for myself.

First, let me state my credentials: I am a funny guy. This is well known in certain circles, which is why, even back in elementary school, I was sometimes asked by the teacher to "say something funny" . . . This, anyway, is my standing for stating that Stephen Colbert was not funny at the White House
Correspondents' Association Dinner.

He then goes on to give a clumsy description of what comedy is supposed to be, at least according to what he apparently picked up during his developmental years in elementary school as he was being encouraged by his teachers to be the class clown!

And what kind of teacher encourages students to “say something funny” in class. Has it ever occurred to Cohen that perhaps his teachers were using him as an example to other students of how embarrassingly foolish one looks while trying to be the class clown, despite having no sense of humor?

In addition to letting him think he was a funny guy, it’s too bad his teachers also seemed to let him think he wrote insightful commentary. Because here we are, reading crap like this in a major newspaper:

The commentary, though, is also what I do, and it will make the point that Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.

Or this:

On television, Colbert is often funny. But on his own show he appeals to a self-selected audience that reminds him often of his greatness. In Washington he was playing to a different crowd, and he failed dismally in the funny person's most solemn obligation: to use absurdity or contrast or hyperbole to elucidate-- to make people see things a little bit differently.

Yeah, I'm sure it was Bush's "sense of decorum" and "civility" that kept him from "rising in a huff and leaving!" Not politics, or the fact that everything Colbert said was true, and he would look like an impetuous buffoon if he stormed out of the room. Just like his decision not to rise in a huff and leave Iraq because of a few "rude" suicide bombers! He's just so civilized!

And what the hell does "appearing to a self-selected audience that reminds him often of his greatness" mean? Sounds to me like what happens at a Republican-only Bush "town hall" meeting. Or maybe Cohen thinks a funnier comedian would be able to crack up audiences being held in Gitmo!

Like I said, a pea brain!