Irritating Intrusion 2.0 - Brownfield don't "get it".

I rarely bother to write to papers like the LA Times because I figure they probably don't give a crap - but since I made the effort, here it is below. It's in reference to:

May 5, 2006
CRITIC'S NOTEBOOK: Guess who came to dinner
*Stephen Colbert's tart tongue inside Beltwood keeps blogs buzzing.
By Paul Brownfield, Times Staff Writer

Dear Times Calendar,

I think that Mr. Brownfield completely misses the point in his May 5, 2006 Critics Notebook piece, "Guess who came to dinner". I happen to be the "kind of loser" (according to Mr. Brownfield) that watches C-SPAN on a Saturday night and by the end of Stephen Colbert's speech my wife and I were laughing so loud and hard that our neighbours could hear us. It wasn't just that we found the humour funny, because it certainly was - we were also laughing because the presentation, in the dry, no nonsense C-SPAN way was perfect for the occasion and Stephen's presentation of sarcasm, satire and irony - something seemingly lost on Mr. Brownfield. We were giddy with joy as well - witnessing the first time in a long time that someone was calling it like it was (and is), not just with Mr. Bush a few feet away and unable to escape, but with a large portion of the D.C. faux-glitterati in attendance as well.

I know that Mr. Brownfield seems to be star struck with celebrities like Ludacris and Pittsburgh Steeler quarterback Ben Roethlisberger who were in attendance - but to my wife and I, it didn't make a difference seeing the trademark C-SPAN tight shot cutaway to Lawrence Fishburne laughing - it was the shots of Mr. Bush turning red with anger (as turning red with embarrassment doesn't seem possible at this point in his tenure) that impressed us.

It is a good thing that the clip of Stephen Colbert has taken on a life of it's own on the web and that bloggers are giving gut felt responses (both in favour and against) because from Mr. Brownfield's piece it is clear that reporters like him lack the sense of irony to report clearly on why this obscure speech at a Saturday night D.C. corporate dinner - only watched by "losers" on C-SPAN - has gained such momentous buzz. It is precisely because Stephen Colbert played to a room full of stiffs "watching to see if the CEO deems it OK to laugh" and it made no difference in his performance. Anyone who is a regular viewer of the Colbert Report knows that he didn't pull any punches and was true to his character - and this is exactly why we do watch his show every night.

Sad to say, but there is a lot more "truth" between the lines - and sometimes directly in them - presented within the dry humour of the Colbert Report, and it's kin, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - when compared to contemporary pop-reporting striving to be fair and balanced which always seems to best succeed at timid self censorship. Had Mr. Brownfield been a little more attentive he would have realized that a better comparison of Colbert's "D.C. kiss-off" would have been Jon Stewart's last appearance on Crossfire where in a somewhat similar spirit he said what needed to be said and thus spoke for more Americans than the media, you included, realizes or wants to admit.