Reply #25: I do not see any taunting

[hfojvt]

That sounds like something that was in his post-Colbert column. I am not sure how it taunts though.

Sense of decorum or tradition or civility? Yes, poor George, working so hard at the thankless task of doing what's best for the country and to have to listen to someone say that he's a liar and an idiot.

I have to wonder what kind of columns Cohen wrote in the Clinton era. Did he, for example, take Jay Leno to task for constantly making jokes about the Clenis? Leno even did an opening monologue skit where he imagined Clinton charging the stage and attacking him. Was Leno, doubtless seen many more times by more people than Colbert, ever chided for his rudeness by Cohen?

"Mockery that is insulting" is not funny? Tell that to Don Rickles. Doesn't that depend on whether you like the person being insulted, or not?

"He was a bully." Yes, it is typical for a person to bully a whole room. To say that Colbert will not suffer any consequence at all is not warranted. It could certainly either hurt or help his career. Did Joe Wilson suffer any consequences? Did Helen Thomas? If anybody has been a bully in the last six years, it is the Bush administration. Shirley, Cohen knows that.

As for this last part: "(Colbert) 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. He had a chance to tell the president and much of important (and self-important) Washington things it would have been good for them to hear."

Perhaps Cohen is funny enough or creative enough to give a few examples of what Colbert should have said. What would be better than Colbert's message - Mr. President, you are a fool who is hurting this country and lickspittles of the press, you have been helping him do it. Perhaps you could even point to a column which is a good example of it. What did you just tell the President and the press in this column? Something like "your critics are a$$holes and idiots". How can you tell incompetents, shills and tyrants what they need to hear without alienating them?