Over on Salon, where you have to watch a lot of ads if you're not a subscriber, there's an except from Lapdogs, which is a new book by one of my favorite political writers, Eric Boehlert. His thesis, with which I agree, is that the press in this country was so afraid of being accused of being anti-American or pro-terrorist that they misreported the Iraq War (and certain other matters), bending over every which way to not challenge the Bush administration. Here's one paragraph from the article…

It's not fair to suggest the MSM [Main Stream Media] alone convinced Americans to send some sons and daughter to fight. But the press went out of its way to tell a pleasing, administration-friendly tale about the pending war. In truth, Bush never could have ordered the invasion of Iraq — never could have sold the idea at home — if it weren't for the help he received from the MSM, and particularly the stamp of approval he received from so-called liberal media institutions such as the Washington Post, which in February of 2003 alone, editorialized in favor of war nine times. (Between September 2002 and February 2003, the paper editorialized twenty-six times in favor of the war.) The Post had plenty of company from the liberal East Coast media cabal, with high-profile columnists and editors — the newfound liberal hawks — at the New Yorker, Newsweek, Time, the New York Times, the New Republic and elsewhere all signing on for a war of preemption. By the time the invasion began, the de facto position among the Beltway chattering class was clearly one that backed Bush and favored war. Years later the New York Times Magazine wrote that most "journalists in Washington found it almost inconceivable, even during the period before a fiercely contested midterm election [in 2002], that the intelligence used to justify the war might simply be invented." Hollywood peace activists could conceive it, but serious Beltway journalists could not? That's hard to believe. More likely journalists could conceive it but, understanding the MSM unspoken guidelines — both social and political — were too timid to express it at the time of war.

If you want to believe that coverage unfavorable to Bush's worldview is bias or that reporters sit around all day figuring how to subvert him, don't bother reading the piece. Some right-wingers will never turn loose of that way of denying bad news, just as some left-wingers will forever cling to the conspiracy theories they use to insulate themselves from reality. But if you're open to the idea that Bush's plunge in popularity is at least in part due to us now knowing things we should have known years ago, you might want to sit through the ads or, better still, buy a Salon subscription.

Early this AM, I was reminiscing about the original Pee-wee Herman Show at the Groundlings. That brought this message from my old pal Dawna Kaufmann…and I'm not sure if I'd forgotten that Dawna was involved with the show or if I just plain never knew. Here's some of what she remembers…

All the early meetings were in my Hollywood apartment, as we brought in John Paragon, Edie McClurg, John Moody, Lynne Marie Stewart, Ivan Flores, Tito Larriva and "musical maniacs" Brian Seff and Monica Ganas, aka Rick and Ruby. Gary Panter designed the colorful look of the production and its poster, his then-wife Nicole was cast as an actor, and their pal Jay Condom (nee Cotton) composed the wacky music and theme song. Rounding out the team were brilliantly inventive puppet makers, set builders and techies. At some point near the premiere, Bill Steinkellner was brought in as another pair of eyes and served well as director. The line producers were Betsy Heimann and Chuck Minsky, who then and now have huge careers in the film biz, respectively as a costume designer and a cinematographer.

The script was written by the performers; I didn't take a writing credit, although I should have; my credit was variously Executive Producer and Executive in Charge of Production. We would rehearse at the theater, and I would audio tape each rehearsal, then Paul and I would spend hours honing the script. It was tough editing out some very funny bits but I insisted it had to be done. I brought in and edited the 1950s training film about school cleanliness, as well as the Mr. Pincushion Man cartoon and a Gumby adventure. An elderly opera singer named Dora Romani, whom we found at Sarno's restaurant, was our opening act. She would work in the audience and flirt with all the men.

The Groundlings let us have the theatre for weekend midnight shows, and we opened on Feb. 7, 1981. I had designed a media campaign to promote the show, calling it "a late-night kiddie show for kids of all ages." I controlled the guest list, making sure that anyone who could help get out the word would be rewarded with free tickets. The Groundlings Theatre was a 99-seat venue and by opening night we had 2,000 people begging for seats.

Throughout our run the most amazing folks would be in the audience, including Robin Williams, Steve Martin, Marty Scorcese, Robert DeNiro, Cindy Williams, Cheech Marin and others. It became such a cultural touchstone that Melrose Avenue, which at that time was a dead zone at midnight, suddenly took on a hip appeal. In the months we played there, we watched that area become the technicolor place to be. Eventually, it became necessary to move to the Roxy Theater, where we could expand the show and play more nights, at earlier times. We transferred our set, cast and crew to Sunset Boulevard, and clicked there too. During the day, Paul and I would meet with TV networks as we saw our dream of turning the project into a series take shape.

Paul's agents brought in a music video director and the show was sold to HBO's just-beginning On Location series. We taped our last night at the Roxy as the show you still see running on HBO, which is what the DVD on Image Entertainment will consist of when released in July. The major difference in the Groundlings vs. Roxy productions is that Ivan Flores, who was a school kid, was replaced by Joan Leizman, another Groundling, who plays the hypnotized woman in the audience on the HBO show. For the HBO version, we also had to drop the Gumby cartoon when we couldn't make a deal with Art Clokey. We also didn't include Dora Romani on the HBO program, but I understand a rough tape of her will be on the DVD.

Mostly my memories are terrific, knowing I helped put into the world one of the greatest comedy collaborations ever.

Thanks, Dawna…and I know you won't mind my observation that the version at the Roxy, though quite wonderful, wasn't as wonderful as what I saw down on Melrose the first time. And come to think of it, the version that aired on HBO wasn't as wonderful as what I saw live at the Roxy. Which is not to say people shouldn't buy and enjoy it.

The one time I worked with Paul Reubens, he struck me as a very canny guy with a good sense of how far Pee-wee could go…which was far from infinite. On ye olde Internet, one often finds the myth that his CBS Saturday morning show was cancelled because of that silly legal mess he got into down in Florida. In fact, he had retired both the show and the identity long before that, which is why the infamous booking photo of him had long hair. He hadn't played Pee-wee in quite some time figuring — I assume — that the character had run its course…and maybe that it wasn't going to play as well as he got older.

But while it lasted, it was quite enjoyable — the show at the Groundlings and the Roxy, the TV series and at least the first movie. I always thought Pee-wee was funny and that that first show was one of the most memorable nights I ever spent in a theater. I wish someone had captured that on tape…but then again, a lot of what made it great was that sense of audience involvement. So I guess you had to be there.

Fred Kaplan reads the Barry McCaffrey memo so we don't have to. General McCaffrey's conclusions are that everything the hawks want to achieve in Iraq is probably possible but it's going to take a lot more time, money and American lives than we're probably willing to expend.

This morning, we have a lesson on "Lunchroom Manners." Some of you may recall this film from the original Pee-wee Herman Show, especially when it was performed on the stage of the Groundlings Theater over on Melrose Avenue. Others may even recall seeing the film in school. It runs nine and a half minutes and we can all learn much from it.

I am reminded of that first, live Pee-wee Herman Show in 1981 at the Groundlings. Paul Reubens was amazing in the role, so totally consumed by it that it was hard to remember that he was an actor playing a part and the guy really wasn't like that. There was also a wonderful back-up cast that included Phil Hartmann (he later dropped the last "n"), Edie McClurg, John Paragon and Lynne Stewart. Even the art direction of the set was memorable. I think but am not sure it was done by cartoonist Gary Panter, who later designed the Pee-wee's Playhouse show for CBS Saturday morning.

Pee-wee lobbed Tootsie Rolls into the audience (one got me in the eye), showed cartoons (and the public service film of today's video link), chatted with people and puppets…and at the end of the show, he actually learned how to fly. You kind of had to see it but the mood in the room was just magical enough to believe it.

The night I saw it, there were delays so though the festivities were supposed to commence at Midnight, the show didn't begin until around 12:30. It was also a night when clocks were turned ahead so we got out around two hours later at what was technically 3:30 AM…and it still wasn't over. The show didn't end so much as it adjourned to Canter's Delicatessen down on Fairfax. Much of the audience went there as did most of the actors, some of whom remained in character. My date and I got back to my place after 5 AM, feeling not like we'd seen a show but that we'd spent the night in a parallel universe. (There was a thick fog that night which added to the Twilight Zone feel of it all.)

The show later moved to the Roxy Theater on Sunset where it was shorter, done at a respectable hour and nowhere near as special. For one thing, it became a show…whereas on Melrose, there had been that sense of having entered a different world. The Roxy engagement was taped for an HBO Special which is coming out on DVD in July and I guess it's okay if you never saw any other version…but I thought it caught about 25% of the wonderment of what I'd seen at the Groundings.

At one point in the show, Pee-wee shared the following film with us. Take notes. You wouldn't want to be a Mr. Bungle.

Yesterday, I posted this video link to a Don Rickles performance and speculated it was from the early days of Showtime. Not so. Michael Kilgore informs me it's from Rickles, a 1975 CBS special with guests Jack Klugman, Don Adams, Michele Lee, James Caan, Michael Caine, Jack Palance, Elliott Gould, Bobby Riggs, Larry Linville and Loretta Swit. I vaguely remember that show. It had some excerpts from Rickles' Vegas act but it also had musical numbers of him dancing with a line of showgirls. It was very…odd.

Greg Mitchell makes an interesting point on Stephen Colbert's speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner: Yeah, maybe it was tasteless…but not as tasteless as Bush's speech at the 2004 event when he joked about not finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Couple of folks wrote to ask what I thought of George W. Bush's speech/skit that preceded Stephen Colbert's the other night. I thought it was actually a clever idea. I suspect that it came about because someone at the White House said to someone else, "You know, Bush is at his worst when he's trying to be funny. If only we could bring in a stunt double for him to handle the comedy…"

Bush impersonator Steve Bridges did a good job. My mother, who has vision problems, said she couldn't tell looking at the TV which Bush was the real one. George W. probably deserves some credit for going along with the bit and doing some pretty self-deprecating material. I wouldn't have thought he had it in him.

It's tempting to read some subtext into a few of the lines. Bush has pretty well demonstrated that he doesn't think much of reporters, even the ones who report things his way, and I don't think it was untrue that he would rather have been somewhere else that evening. (Later, after Colbert, that seemed even more likely.) But as Freud should have said, sometimes a joke is just a joke.

Here's the video of the routine…

Three years ago today, George W. Bush stood on the deck of an aircraft carrier and proclaimed "Major combat operations have ended" in Iraq. Since then, an additional 2,261 U.S. soldiers have been killed and another 16,927 have been wounded.

This one's too good to wait for tomorrow. I'm not sure where it's from…probably some early Showtime special. It's Don Rickles from Las Vegas with a very odd bunch of guest stars. The song is something Rickles did in his act for years (minus the cameo guests) especially during a period when he seemed to think audiences just wanted to see him sing and dance. The first time I saw him in Vegas, that's pretty much what he did and the talking portions of his stage time were taken up not by insults but by long discourses on how we should all get down on our knees every morning and thank God that he gave us Frank Sinatra. Don later got back more to the kind of thing that had made him famous, like calling people hockey pucks and saying they suck sap out of rubber trees.

You should recognize all of the cameo guests except maybe the guy with the tennis racket. It's Bobby Riggs, the famous tennis hustler who battled (and lost to) Billie Jean King in a vastly overhyped "battle of the sexes" match in 1973. This appearance was probably his sixteenth minute of fame.

The clip runs a little under four and a half minutes. You'll want to play it over and over and over…

Frank Rich comes back from vacation to assess the remaining thousand days of the Bush presidency.

This morning, we have another video of a great magician at work but before I get to it, I want to mention that Billy McComb passed away this afternoon following a long hospitalization. Everyone around the Magic Castle is saddened by the news since Billy was a great, wicked presence at the Castle as a performer, as a member of the Board, and as an endless fount of great stories. If you ever got to chat with the guy or see his act, you're probably saddened by the news, too.

Actually, I think I was sitting near Billy at the Castle the first time I saw Lance Burton perform. If I had to pick the best magician working today, I'd pick Mr. Burton. His show at the Monte Carlo hotel in Las Vegas is state-of-the-art magic, though I must admit I liked him even better when he was at the Hacienda. For five years, he did a low-budget, low-priced magic show there that substituted ingenuity, talent and plain ol' hard work for expensive spectacle. I saw it many times and it never failed to delight everyone in the house, including me.

That show opened as his current show opens: With Burton's championship "in one" routine, producing doves and lit candles from God-knows-where. He did at the Castle the first time I saw him there…and it's one thing to see non-magicians stare in awe at tricks; quite another to see some of the world's top magicians with their jaws hanging open. Someone called it the most perfect bit of stand-up magic ever done and if you saw the whole thing — which I recall as running around twelve minutes — you might well agree. I'm sorry he's trimmed it down but even the two and a half minute version in our clip today is pretty astounding work. Take a look and see if you can figure out where the birds come from. I mean, besides from eggs.

Stephen Colbert's speech last night was at least as critical of the Washington press corps as it was of George W. Bush. Take this section…

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years, you people were so good over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew. But, listen, 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 a 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.

This was a dinner for White House correspondents, let's remember. And if you were trying to tell them that you think they're a bunch of incompetents who have damaged the world by not doing their jobs, I'm not sure what you could have written that would convey that charge better than the above.

The more I think about it, the more I think Colbert made a conscious decision not to care if the audience laughed. I mean, if all you care about is making White House reporters guffaw, you do jokes about the cramped offices, the hate mail, the lack of respect they get from others, etc. Whatever you think of the guy, he didn't come out there and pander to the audience for laughs. He insulted the audience. Perhaps he totally misjudged the room but I think it's more likely he just plain said what he thought of them.

Here's a safer link to a video of the speech last night…

• Stephen Colbert, Part One
• Stephen Colbert, Part Two
• Stephen Colbert, Part Three

I've received about forty messages from readers of this site about how they felt, ranging the gamut from "he was hilarious" to "not one giggle." I think both extremes overstate and I'm inclined to agree with this e-mail that came from a Rob Rose…

I think my feelings can be summed up quickly:

1. He had some pretty brilliant lines — some of which were perhaps a bit too pointed for that room.

2. Probably not quite how I would have approached it myself — while I personally loathe the Bush administration, if I were working the stage while the President was sitting there, I would probably not want to kick him while he's down quite as much as Colbert did.

3. On the other hand, it was I think pretty true to Colbert's usual style — which means the blame really lies with whoever decided to hire him. They got what they ought to have expected, I think.

There are times when I see some politician I don't like getting slammed and I feel sorry for them. In spite of what anyone says, these are human beings and even the ones I think are destructive are in some warped way trying to make life better. But then I think about that destruction and about the fact that often, they don't seem to recognize it. I often recall a remark I heard on some political discussion show years ago about one elected official. Some reporter said, "He does not connect what he does with its impact on people's lives. If you tell him someone died because they couldn't afford medical care, he says 'That's terrible' and genuinely feels sorry for them…but refuses to accept that it might have something to do with that bill he signed that cost a million people their health insurance." Even the politicos I support at times do things that devastate lives and our sympathies ought to go to the folks who get killed in wars, lose their homes, etc., not to the ones who, even inadvertently or indirectly, caused or failed to stop that damage.

I also remember that most politicians seem to be fine with calling their opponents mentally ill or criminal or pathological liars, and that they voluntarily get into a line of work where others are going to do that to them. Nixon used to use the old ruse of saying, "What people say about me doesn't bother me but it upsets my family" — to which a reasonable reply was, "Well, maybe you should have thought of that before you decided to seek public office." It sort of comes with the job description.

The man who booked Colbert for the event — apparently the gent you see on the video introducing him — did what they always do: He went for the highest-profile topical comedian he could get. That was probably Stephen Colbert. I'm not sure why they even have a comedian at these things since the audience never seems all that interested in sitting there, listening to an outsider mock them and what they do. But you're right: They got what they should have expected. And everyone Colbert insulted, Bush especially, should have thick-enough skin to endure it.

In the previous message, I posted the following two links to the best copy of Stephen Colbert's routine I could find online. This upset a couple of readers of newsfromme because — as I hadn't noticed, sorry — the links are to a site that also hosts a fair amount of porn. At the moment, I can't find another complete link to a decent copy so for those of you who want to risk connecting with a site that also contains naked people, here they are: Part One and Part Two. If and when I find a "safer" link, I'll post it.

My e-mailbox is stuffed with messages from people telling me either that Colbert was inarguably hilarious or definitely unfunny. Most of these people seem to think he is always whichever way they found him to be at the Correspondents' Dinner.

I haven't quite decided what I think of Stephen Colbert's speech at the Correspondents' Dinner though I'm getting there. I will say that he showed great courage to do some of that material in front of that crowd. I'd be curious to hear reports from people who were actually in the room since the audience was not well-miked and I'm not sure why certain folks were selected for the audience reaction shots. One did get the idea that Mr. and Mrs. George W. Bush weren't delighted with the floor show…as is explained in what I suspect is the first of many articles about the performance.

I've never been to one of these press dinners but I'm guessing it's a very hard room for a comedian. The people aren't there to be entertained. They want to mingle and hobnob with the famous. They'll sit still for a speech by the president, whoever he is at the moment, because it's his presence that elevates the importance of the event they're proud to be attending. But apart from that, I'll bet most of the crowd is eager for it to be over with so they can go back to fraternizing. The gent who was hosting seemed to be having a fair amount of trouble getting the audience to pipe down and listen to the program.

I'd also be curious to know what Colbert's goal was…and it may not have just been to entertain the folks out front in the formal wear. If it was, he probably went about it the wrong way. When you hammer the president that much right in front of him, you make an awful lot of people uncomfy…and not just the ones who side with the guy. I thought some of Colbert's lines were brilliant but if I'd been in the room, I might have spent more time looking at the reactions of others (Bush, especially) to some of them than laughing. On the other hand, Colbert's main objective may have been to cultivate a certain image as a performer…or simply to express his views. He could well have succeeded in one or both of those.

I'm going to watch it again tomorrow and see how I feel about it then. It may be it's like one of those events where the boss is being ridiculed but everyone feels okay about laughing as soon as the boss starts laughing. Only in this case, the boss never started laughing.