The problem with satire...

is that few are good at it.

Remember Don Imus' appearance at the White House correspondents' dinner ten years ago? Bill Clinton was president and Imus delivered a rude, graceless "speech" not even worthy of the witty repartee one might encounter during a 2AM stop at the White Castle for a bag of slyders following a night of barhopping.

Stephen Colbert appeared to be emulating Imus' grimly unamusing example in his appearance before the same group this past week.

I agree with the assessment of Richard Cohen writing in today's Washington Post that Colbert was lame and unfunny. I also agree with Cohen that Colbert's performance was even less than that:

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.

Satire is a difficult form of humor, something requiring subtlety rather than a sledgehammer. It requires good judgment. The satirists in Shakespeare's plays--the jesters--were able to deliver their barbs at royalty while making the royals laugh.

Good satire can humble the powerful; bad satire humiliates the would-be satirist.

In their appearances at the correspondent dinners, separated by ten years, Imus and now, Colbert, were rude and crass. That's not satire.