Eugene David<br>...The One-Minute Pundit

Posted 8:12 AM by Gene

Yesterday in skimming over that blithering puff piece about THE ERIC SEVAREID OF COMEDY we read something that didn't register quite at first glance, but when we thought of it made us fume:

CBS anchor Bob Schieffer said Colbert had successfully bottled the spirit of the annual Gridiron dinner, a clubby inside-the-Beltway roast of major Washington figures, and given it broad appeal.

"I think it's part of the American redemption process now that you have to let people make fun of you a bit," said 69-year-old Schieffer, who joked on the program this month that most viewers of "CBS Evening News" were older than he was.

We remember watching the Gridiron Club belch on television years ago, on PBS -- or maybe it was the @#$%&* White House Correspondents' dinner, what's the diff? -- and we were angry the whole time. You couldn't have cut through the high self-regard with a jackhammer. (We will forgive Bob for appearing on the SEVAREID show; it's a VIACON, and he's a good, smart guy.) As emcees of mini-Gridiron Clubs ERIC and the EDWARD R. MURROW OF COMEDY are mere court jesters for a corrupt system, just as the drunken clod IMUS is, and we should scorn and ridicule them with the same vitriol that we do our other Beltway betters.