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Guy YedwabWriting The Essay4/8/2007Press Correspondent's Feast of Fools(Ex 5)Many people have said that many things have changed since 9/11. The lackadaisical, warm, peaceful, profitable, and all-in-all enjoyable 1990s ground to a sudden and stomach-dropping halt. Awhole new generation of young adults, the first born after the intensely political Cold War and the firstto grow up in a far less political climate, was suddenly thrust back into the political world. An attack onAmerican soil made it, at least briefly, of earth-shattering importance to follow world events.Unfortunately, the political and journalistic climate of the period was not the most welcomingfor the new youth. As Dan Sneirson observes in
 Entertainment Weekly
, “These are trying times. Beset by towering gas prices, never-ending wars, and perplexing celebrity-name fusions, we had nowhere toturn for guidance...until one man stepped forward and administered a wedgie to our troubles.” The manis Stephen Colbert, and the wedgie Sneirson describes is the viciously topical satire he provides eachnight, four nights a week. As James Poniewozik says in
TIME Magazine
, Colbert's format is a directreaction to the media pundits through which many Americans now get their news: “...A hypocrite. A blowhard. Pompous, superficial and vain. He is 'poorly informed but highly opinionated.' [as Colbert puts it.]”The show, it seems, is trapped in the moment. It is filled to the brim with cultural references of today. As James Poniewozik observes, one of his comedic strains harkens back to the “2004 election,when the Bush campaign positioned itself against ivory-tower liberal élites.” In future years, will weremember what President Bush campaigned on? Probably not, no more than we can remember whatPresident Eisenhower ran on, or President Taylor (did we even have a President Taylor?). On the other hand, his connection to his Eliot-style “tradition” is evident. Celia Wren, writing for the Catholic publication
Commonweal 
, compares his satire to “the savage bite of Jonathan Swift's 'A Modest
of 00

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