Why So Defensive?

That starts at about 16:40. And if you want to go wild, you can sync that up with the C-SPAN version , which does show the video (starting at 1:23.)

You'll see that Bush chuckles at first. But at 17:55, when NBC's David Gregory asks "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" Bush's jaw makes that peculiar shifting motion that seems to happen a lot when he's under stress.

At about 19:14, when Hearst columnist and presidential scourge Helen Thomas makes her first appearance on the video, correspondents' association president Mark Smith says something to Bush, which he shrugs off. Was it an apology? (Any lip readers out there?)

And check out the contemptuous head-shake at 19:42, just as Thomas is finally uncorking her seminal question: "Why did you really want to go to war?"

From then on, there are jaw twitches, lip purses and eye squinches aplenty.

There's a wry smile at 22:49. If I'm not mistaken, that's at the point where it looked like Colbert might just possibly run Thomas over with his car.

When the video ends -- "Helen Thomas, ladies and gentlemen!" says Colbert -- Bush responds with very sarcastic-looking, lackluster applause.

Colbert as Touchstone

Time TV critic James Poniewozik writes: "Was he funny or not? Days after Stephen Colbert performed at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, this has become the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006 -- like whether you drive a hybrid or use the term 'freedom fries.' . . .

"Personally, I thought Colbert was good, if not his best; he flubbed a couple of jokes notably and recycled some lines from his own show. . . . But I think that the people who said Colbert bombed reveal less about their political leanings than about their understanding of the media culture we live in now. The reason they think he flopped, of course, is that he didn't get many big laughs in the room. And once upon a time, that would have been what mattered. . . .

"Today, however, thanks to the reposting of the Colbert video online, any of you who are curious about Colbert's performance have probably already seen it. Colbert wasn't playing to the room, I suspect, but to the wide audience of people who would later watch on the Internet. If anything, he was playing against the room -- part of the frisson of his performance was the discomfort he generated in the audience, akin to the cringe humor of The Ali G Show. . . .

"To the audience that would watch Colbert on Comedy Central, the pained, uncomfortable, perhaps-a-little-scared-to-laugh reaction shots were not signs of failure. They were the money shots. They were the whole point."

Mainstream Media: It's Not Funny!

Richard Cohen writes in his Washington Post opinion column: "Colbert was not just a failure as a comedian but rude. . . .