Now that I am out of the country, I don’t get to watch the Daily Show or Colbert Report as much as I would like. Occasionally I see a great clip being passed around, and occasionally I download an episode or two. To be completely honest, I love Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, and I LOVED Stephen Colbert when he was on it, but I don’t LOVE the Colbert Report. I think the big reason is because he plays this fucking Bill O’Reilly character ALL THE TIME, and it’s just sort of hard to deal with. Although the commentary is dead on, the caricature is just too much sometimes.

A few nights ago, Mark Smith (of AP radio and TV) made the sore mistake (or genius move of a lifetime) of inviting Stephen Colbert to speak at the Whitehouse Corespondents Dinner in Washington D.C. In case you don’t know, this dinner is a big deal. This year it was attended by many of the country’s most important and most controversial figures, including the President, George W. Bush, Senator John McCain, Jesse Jackson, Justice Scalia, New Orleans “the chocolate city” Mayor Nagen, Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, Tony Snow, Scott McClellan, General Peter Pace, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many others.

I know I am taking some time to get around to the point, but basically, Colbert let it rip in the most ridiculous fashion. Instead of a funny talk, he ROASTED President Bush, in a way that rivaled the worst of whatever you’ve ever seen on Comedy Central. He dug in with such scathing commentary/comedy that most people didn’t/don’t know what to do. Half the time he was greeted to with mild laughter and clapping, and the other half, dead silence. He proved, if nothing else, that he has the absolute BIGGEST balls in comedy, media, television, and the world right now, by ripping the leader of the free world a new asshole right in front of his face. Bush’s reactions are as uncomfortable as they are priceless. Seriously, this is incredible footage.

Seriously though, not only is this funny, but it is incredibly uncomfortable. After the first 5 minutes I started wishing they would just kick him off the podium. Instead, they let him go, and it just got worse and worse and worse. I KNOW Bush needed to hear all this, as did the corps of Whitehouse reporters, but honestly, this is a bit disrespectful, even for MY tastes. That’s what makes it so great.

This appearance has solidified Colbert as one of the top political satirists of our time, if not, just the dude with biggest balls EVER.

There is a torrent for the whole big video file, but it is probably better to watch the 3 segments broken up on YouTube here. In either case, the whole transcript is available here, and you must watch/read/talk about this right away. This is truly insane.

UPDATE: It looks like Bush might be a better sport than I thought. Have a look at the BBC article and shitty video of Bush and Steve Bridges, outstanding Bush impersonator, going back and forth making fun of the President’s speaking difficulties, just before the Colbert segment at the same dinner.

UPDATE 2: Thank You Stephen Colbert is a blog-based thank you card to Stephen. There are over 19,000 thank you’s so far.

UPDATE 3: The video has been removed from YouTube due to “copyright infringement.” It was on CSPAN, was it not? This is total bullshit. YouTube is starting to suck balls. Look around assholes, everything on your site is copyright infringement!

UPDATE 4: Fuck YouTube. The whole CSPAN broadcast, beginning to end, including the Colbert 25 mins is up on Google Video here and here is just the Colbert bit.

UPDATE 5: And here’s the link to the torrent file on mininova. Fuck everyone.

[via everyone.]