Over the weekend, Stephen Colbert spoke at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, cutting down everyone in the room, and likely earning himself a nice little wiretap in the process.
Simply put, he was hilarious, but the crowd certainly didn't think so. Maybe after laughing heartily along with President Bush's "inner monologue via look-alike bit", they were primed for another, lamer type of humor. In any other room, it would have killed.
Here's a clip, but the entire speech (and transcripts) can be found, downloaded, watched, and cherished forever here.
(I don't know why C-Span was so stingy with the Bush cutaways. They're hilarious.)
Anyway, I realize that this is comedy blasphemy to some, so I'm going to say it as gently as possible: Has Stephen Colbert surpassed Jon Stewart in funniness––much like Jesus surpassed God in religiosity (Whoops, sorry. That was real blasphemy in the form of a lame joke). The Colbert Report is certainly funnier than The Daily Show.
What has happened to The Daily Show? It is pretty close to unwatchable nowadays. Every joke sounds like a rejected Weekend Update headline, or is contingent on some wacky graphic hanging over Jon Stewart's shoulder. Either that, or it's just a straight news clip, and then they cut back to Jon Stewart shrugging. A Stewart shrug can be funny, just not 3 times in a row.
And while I enjoy some of the contributors, like Demetri Martin and Jon Hodgman, their reports are too few and far between. Most of the new correspondents are awful. Especially Jason Jones, who basically just does a bad Jon Stewart impression.
But maybe I'm the only one. (Doubt it.) What do all of you think?