Stephen Colbert. Correspondents' Dinner Speech. White House Correspondents' Association. Washington Hilton. C-Span, 2006. "Colbert Roasts President Bush - 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner."YouTube. 26.4.07 3.26.09 http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879.
Stephen Colbert, who made his big break as a reporter on The Daily Show, is among the most popular fake news anchors on television today. He puts on a persona that closely resembles Bill O’Reilly, the loud talking, conservative anchor of The O’Reilly Factor. He is never out of character, spouting extreme conservative view points that make Republicans out to be ridiculous. To some people’s shock, he maintained this character when performing at the 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, which was an event attended by the President, First Lady, high ranking officials and the members of the media. While the President was sitting not ten feet from him, Colbert went on to roast pretty much everything about George W. Bush. He made fun of the President’s intellect, secrecy, vacation time, and stubbornness to admit mistakes. Colbert basically highlighted major news stories that occurred about the President during his time in office. The audience on layer one was the President, who he acted like he was admiring the whole time. The layer two audience is the members of the press, who he has a disrespect for. The conclusion he was trying to stress was it is alright to make fun of the President at any time, even when speaking directly to him. He even at one point chides the press for starting to speak up, but what he is really doing is demonstrating their failure to fulfill the duties of the Fourth Estate. The audience, on both layers, will not like the criticism, but having it wrapped up in a joke makes it softer and there was an increase of scrutiny on the President in his last few years in office.
