Richard Cohen So Doesn't Get It

A mark of Steven Colbert's genius last Saturday is the utter shite it has triggered by way of responses from the pundit class. Richard Cohen, whose ox was most definitely gored, is in high dudgeon. His response, So Not Funny, is so not sentient. It is is almost self refuting in its lame cluelessness, but let me help it along a bit. Sayeth Richard:

Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. Rude is not the same as brash. It is not the same as brassy. It is not the same as gutsy or thinking outside the box. Rudeness means taking advantage of the other person's sense of decorum or tradition or civility that keeps that other person from striking back or, worse, rising in a huff and leaving. The other night, that person was George W. Bush.
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The gala is an essentially harmless event that requires the presence of one man, the president. If presidents started not to show up, the organization would have to transform itself into a burial association. But presidents come and suffer through a ritual that most of them find mildly painful, not to mention boring. Whatever the case, they are guests.

Cohen claims not to attend the thing -- I assume a wanker of his stature can find better cocktail weenies elsewhere. But his argument betrays the same kind of obliviousness that plagues so much of his writing.

This "gala" looks harmless only to courtiers like you, Richard. Bush and his inner circle understand that it is a powerful tool of co-option -- and you and yours are the ones being co-opted. They understand that Bush made it into the White House by running this same affable, regular-guy schtick on you morons on the campaign trail in 2000, and that if they trot out self-deprecating regular-guy George one day a year, you lapdogs will lay off King Screw-the-Constitution for the other 364. This "gala" is a symptom of a disease that is potentially fatal to our Republic. That disease claimed you long ago.

If King George is so insulted that he stays home and they cancel the thing in response, we in the blogosphere will not weep for the hundreds of sycophants who might have to buy their own dinners that night. Heaven forfend, but absent their fix of synthetic bonhomie, perhaps they might seek out a sliver of truth themselves instead of being gobsmacked when a mere comedian rubs their noses in it.

Which gets us to the real point: it isn't Colbert's alleged rudeness to the Worst President Ever that really gets your hackles up, is it?

¨Let´s review the rules. Here´s how it works. The president makes decisions, he´s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Put them through the spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know... fiction.¨

It just amazes me how you and your partners in crime seem to keep pretending that part, which had exactly nothing to do with our President's delicate sensibilities, never happened.

Oh, excuse me, Richard. Was I being rude? I am So Not Sorry.

Update: Poor Man. Greenwald.