THURSDAY'S LETTERS: More Praise for Colbert, Knocks on Bush WMD Skit, Ripping AP on Graff Firing

By: E&P Staff The crush of pro- and anti- Stephen Colbert letters to E&P has finally begun to abate (with the pro side easily carrying the day in numbers of letters) They continue to trickle in, however, as well as responses to Greg Mitchell's column about the 2004 White House Correspondents Association dinner, and a note about the Chris Graff firing in Vermont. We will continue to add more letters as they come in later today.


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Colbert's Speech, Bush's WMD Skit, and More Colbert


Hey, Greg [Mitchell], great article on Colbert. I'll tell you why the press corps didn't find it funny: Because they hate to be reminded of how miserably they've failed at their one constitutional duty (i.e., to rigorously QUESTION the government, not fawn over it).

Jonathan David Morris



[Greg Mitchell], thank you so much for mentioning this incident. I was so surprised that people actually could think this was funny after so many soldiers and civilians already had died. Where was the outrage about what Mr. Bush did? There should have be one huge uproar. What has happened to this country? Where is the journalists' sense of duty and honor? They had a field day going after president Clinton just for having an affair. They let Bush get away with everything. What a shameful time this is for this nation.

Anna Jennings



Let the boneheads complain all they want. Colbert gave the right speech at the right time to the right audience. He was a stand in for many of us who will never, ever get the access to power those fancy people in the audience take for granted every day.

The problem with the White House media isn't that it is partisan. It's not. It's just too pro-establishment. When Colbert skewered the established norms, he threatened to turn over the very thing that makes those people feel so important.

How vested are you in the way things are currently run? Are you so well off that that you don't think the whole system needs some fundamental change?

Kevan Smith



Greg [Mitchell], I remember that night 2 years ago with Pres. Bush searching for WMD's in his office. It was the most appalling and sick humor I have ever been exposed to. I have wondered for 2 years why that video was not shown over and over again. WHen someone attempts to defend the this admistration- it think of the dinner and the video. Thanks for bringing it to light!!!

Joanne Schollaert



I enjoy [Greg Mitchell's] column. Sadly, though, the 4th Estate should shoulder a lot of the blame for not pressing hard enough on this Administration from the day they took office. The press has flinched when labeled "unpatriotic" by the GOP henchmen and have cowered ever since (lately they've found some backbone).

Even though I've been on the ad side of newspapers for over 23 years, I still take pride when the medium takes to task wrong doers in the public interest. I hope those days will return. I think it would be in everybody's best interest (both sides of the aisle).

Dave Traub



It's a sad commentary on the news media and Congress when the only reality critique that trickles through the White House filters to reach President George W. Bush is a biting Stephen Colbert parody performed before a captive audience at the White House Correspondents Association dinner.

Imagine poor President Bush roped down to his chair due to etiquette having to actually listen to the many sorry examples of Bush administration incompetence and deliberate White House deceptions presented by Colbert in the form of a comic spoof on those caustic far right pundits at Fox News pushing their ignorant version of wrong. Seeing how chicken-hawk George refuses to face even a simple follow-up question at press conferences after he ignorantly dances around the original query, it must have been pure Guantanamo style torture for such an isolated, mean-spirited guy like Bush to be stuck there taking it instead of dishing it out in his usual unchallenged bully boy fashion.

J. Scott Taylor
Everett, Wash.



I cannot believe that so few people understand that Colbert's performance was NOT supposed to be funny. He was taking the Bush Administration and the national press corps to task for failing miserably in their respective jobs over the last five years, in the most public and harshest terms seen since 9/11. And he finished his speech before his only too willing victims could even figure out what was happening to them. I cannot remember the last time I have been in such awe of a fellow citizen of the United States. Thank you Stephen Colbert for telling the president exactly how I and millions of others in this country feel.

Joel Leoschke



Well thank you guys so much for posting the transcript of the Colbert speech; glad to finally read the whole thing. Was this guy Colbert right on? Yessir he sure was. Nailed it. Funny? Well, mostly no. Not really. Not hardly. Actually, make that an unqualified "no." Still: glad he said what he said. Glad GWB had to sit through it, maybe squirm just a little. Got to hand it to the "president," though: Another "president" -- one who could figure out what was going on, for example -- might have jumped up and protested or just walked out in a huff. But GWB is not a jump-upper or a walker-outer. No sir. He is a squirmer. Well suited to the role, too. Wish he had more opportunities to do just that. Squirm.

Like, what if the press corpse at one of those presidential press conferences had one guy that just got up and said, "Mister Bush? Why did you lie?" And then sat down. And the next one got up and she said, "Mister Bush? Why did you lie?" And so on and so forth, right down the whole bunch of 'em, with the last one saying, "Mister Bush? A follow up question: Why was it that you lied?" Would that be cool?

Bob Kalsey



Who would ever have thought that a comedian from a cable television network would have ended up the only one in the palace to tell the emperor he had no clothes? Perhaps we need a few more court jesters, at least if they're as brilliant and unflinching as Mr. Colbert!

Shawn Huckaby



Personally, I read the transcript before I read the news; that means that I didn't know, at first, that Bush was really there. I thought perhaps it must have been a routine, a faux speech on a green screen, a la the Daily Show. But then I saw the footage and was shocked and thrilled to see that, YES!, this really happened! Stephen Colbert is my new hero. Not because I'm a Bush-hater. But because I dig the fact that it ever happened, that it didn't get censored, and that Colbert is still alive. As bad as things are, it's still cool to live in the USA. And it's even cooler because Colbert is my countryman.

Betsy Sanz
Orange, CA



Thanks E&P. By the way, who the hell hired him? If they paid ounce of attention to what he does and has been doing on his show and before on the Daily Show, they would have known. It's supposed to be a roast, I thought or else they are just stupid. It only takes a tiny understanding of the word I_R_O_N_Y to realize that he is clearly not a conservative. Now they are upset. ? Bravo to the Charleston, SC boy who doesn't act like one. I can tell you that to have come from this town with his point of view and to vocalize it takes some bravery.

Mary Cimino


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Graff a Victim of AP Paranoia?

The firing of Chris Graff (supposedly over his distribution of a column by Pat Leahy on the importance of "sunshine laws") was an act of vengeful overkill. It is the sort of response that I would have expected from the government of Communist China -- certainly not from the Associated Press.

Chris's misstep may have been counter to AP guidelines but I would not characterize it as serious breach of ethics. And I don't believe for one minute that this was the real reason for his termination.

Reactionary, paranoiac acts by owners of mainstream media outlets against journalists who push for truth and openness are leading more and more of us to distrust these media.

My own disgust with the press over the last six years has grown to the point where the only news source I trust anymore is Jon Stewart.

Patience Merriman
Jacksonville, Vt.



The termination of AP Vermont bur. chief, Chris Graff, with the limited explanation offered, to my knowledge, is largely unacceptable.

It is, indeed, a sad day for the AP when it appears a partisan decision such as this is made in an attempt to censor the public's access to opinion offered by an elected official.

This will damage the AP's standing in the news industry and with readers going forward. A decision such as this one leaves no road for retreat. No severance agreement requiring the secreting of motives will any longer successfully fool the readership or the news industry herself. Fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me. We're many miles too far down the road of disintegrating journalistic integrity to be fooled by this oft repeated behavior.

Yes, it is a truly sad day for American journalism. Another in our generation - when partisanship editorial management rears it's ugly head and still assumes readers to be pliable enough to deny it to us, retrospectively. The public has lost a form of innocence these last years through abuse of such trust and sadly is no longer so pliable nor naive'.

Kate Boyd
Toledo, Ohio