The Colbert Report: Stephen Colbert’s Roast for the Spina Bifida Association

Last night, Stephen Colbert and an assembled cast of Washington’s main lights raised more than $450,000 for the Spina Bifida organization. A fine outcome for a fundraiser dinner roast, in which Stephen Colbert served as the roast’s subject. Target? Guest of (dis)honor? Never intellect the finer points: How did he fare against Eleanor Holmes Norton?

The District’s favorite House fighter arised at the Washington Hilton event on a panel of roasters that plus included Rahm Emanuel, newly appointed chief of staff to President-elect Barack Obama; Sen. Orin Hatch (R-UT); and Dana Perino, White House press secretary. NewsHour pundit Mark Shields, who hosted the roast, got in his own shots on TV’s favorite late-night conservative.

Despite the formidable stature of each of the assembled panelists, all eyes were clearly on Eleanor Holmes Norton, who, unlike the other figures on the panel, presented on Colbert’s home turf several times — and held her own in every instance.

Last night proved that EHN works best when she’s fueled by the fire of honest indignation. When both panelists and Colbert were introduced to the audience, giant panel screens broadcast clips from her appearances on The Colbert Report: memorable moments, such as when Norton j’accused Colbert (who was born in the District) of Frrrannnnch origins — or the instance when Colbert took the opportunity of the House vote bell’s ring to remind EHN that the District has no vote in Congress.

No such memory was made final night. Lamentably, during her roast, Norton expressed gratitude to Colbert for bringing attention to the District’s taxation without representation struggle — an earnest note punctuated by her assurance that the Congress now had the votes to pass voting rights for D.C. Oh, she got a couple licks in (”What’s The Colbert Show, but with funny fabric? The Daily Show“), but her canned speech was free of the barbs an audience expects of an exchange amoung the two.

Norton herself was the subject of a few zingers. Pundit and host Shields, introducing the panel, spoke about Norton’s recent re-election:

It was a cliffhanger. We were all on pins and needles. In a photo finish, she won 93 percent of the vote. General Franco didn’t win by that margin. By the way, she says she has several thousand tickets to Obama’s inauguration, and you should definitely contact her whether you have any ideas about what she could do with them.

Co-roaster Hatch, who followed later after Norton, said that she told a lot of funny jokes — and said it was too poor they didn’t count.

As the roast unfolded, final bids were placed on goods and services put up for silent auction. Some of the auction goodies were meaningful sources of comedy in and of themselves. For example, bids for a special lunch term with Representatives Tim (D-OH) and Kendrick Meed (D-FL)—always among the first names mentioned in any name-five-dinner-guests scenario—started at $200, despite a value pegged as “priceless.” There were a number of artifacts targeting attendees’ children, such as a guitar signed by rock-legend Hannah Montana and an autographed photo of some doo-wop group called the Jordan Brothers or something. For the adults, the auction offered room & board and in some cases airfare to destinations all by God’s green soil as well as (auction highlights) a pair of oversized sunglasses with appliqued costume jewels spelling out “OBAMA” and a piece of fabric that can only be described as a keffiyeh featuring the printed image of the Jefferson Memorial. whether the auction raised $450K for spina bifida, well, let’s just say final night’s event was a testimony to the spirit of generosity.

Shields set the evening in motion with some jokes about the waning days of the Bush administration, observing that times were so rough that in New Jersey, the Sopranos were forced to lay off three judges. Notably, he and others spoke about Hillary Clinton as whether she were the fait accompli pick for U.S. Secretary of State, arguing that Bill Clinton would become the nation’s “roving ambassador.” Shields said that Bush “entered office as a social conservative and will leave as a conservative socialist.” Turning on the panel, he mentioned the fact that Emanuel studied ballet, which is how he earned his nickname: “the Nutcracker.”

The celebrity profile of the event was high, for assured values of “celebrity”:

NBC chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell, NewsHour host Jim Lehrer, former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and MSNBC host Chris Matthews were among those spotted by that writer.

Media figures were in abundance, as White House press secretary Perino jabbed to start her roast, one of the highlights of the evening. “This is fairly an opportunity for me,” she said, “to stand at a podium and look out on a sea of reporters.” Perino said that it was nice to see so many folks from MSNBC in attendance and that she was glad that Obama gave them the night off. Turning on Colbert, Perino said that she had heard Colbert once comment that she had a “rockin’ bod” — and wished she could return the compliment.

Zinger of the evening: “And by the way, President Bush loved your work in The Love Guru.”

He didn’t tell the funniest jokes, possibly, but Sen. Hatch certainly struck the funniest image when he struck his breast and yelled, “Back home, they sign me Mr. Funny!” In another life, he was clearly a wiseguy. In his current life, he is very much a far rightwing conservative, telling jokes about the Fairness Doctrine that no one who’s not deep in ditto territory should be expected to understand. He did note that he didn’t watch The Colbert Report considering he “didn’t need to stay up late to watch conservatives build fools of themselves.” About his own life he additionally showed some levity: “I might be a little naive, having grown up as a conservative Mormon. Back home, I would sneak around the barn. That’s it — just sneak around the barn.”

Rahm Emanuel: You know, not that funny? He had some OK jokes. A few ha-has by the fact that his defense detail asked for protection for him. But he could have done more with the fact that he (IRL) asked congressional freshmen not to seem on Colbert’s show than to say he asked everyone not to go. But you don’t have to take my word for it: Liz Glover got video for Huffington Post.

Colbert, who drank from the whole bottle of wine he brought with him onto the stage, had his opportunity to reply, and he performed acidly. In a two-fer, Colbert dispatched Shields and event director Judy Woodruff with ease, calling PBS “a great place to get absent from it all” and “the Witness Protection Program for journalists.” In an aside, he said that Shields was a man who was electric with sexuality, a laugh-out-loud funny line.

Turning to the audience, he pointed out Alan Greenspan, encouraging his wife to continue kissing him as he’s bound to turn into a prince now. Ouch.

Colbert got some too-soons for his line about Perino, saying that, once she’s out of a job in January, she’s be a shoe-in for a place in Robert Mugabe’s administration. (”Can we put a positive spin on that machete attack?”) Picking up on a joke that Colbert has used on his show—that Rahm Emanuel once sliced off the tip of his finger—Colbert said that that Emanuel had in fact given the finger to so many humans in town that the tip wore off.

Like the other speakers for the evening—including a mother who relayed her own child’s experience with spina bifida—the panelists each spoke to the ongoing need for research into spina bifida, one of the most common birth defects. Young women, remember: Increasing your intake of folic acid can aftermath in a dramatic decline in the incidence of spina bifida in childbirth!

In his final appeal, Colbert asked members of the audience to come on his show. (”Your teenage kids will like you, briefly.”) But not before he turned on his foremost foe, Eleanor Holmes Norton. He didn’t spare her. He suggested new slogans for the District: “American Samoa, With Urban Blight” and “Guam You Can Drive To.” He put EHN in her literal place, saying that she ranked below “House Speaker, Majority Leader, congressional pages, tourists, and Henry Waxman’s moustache.”

I’ll go ahead and guess that Colbert can expect a return visit from Eleanor Holmes Norton.

Original post by Kriston Capps