Stephen Colbert

Stephen colbert

The White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, Washington DC, April 29

The President of Iran recently declared that democracy has failed worldwide. That's an exaggeration. But as America's neoconservatives turn their guns towards Iran in their grand project of spreading democracy around the world, the kind on offer back home is looking increasingly flaky.

What do you need for a healthy democracy? According to some, all you require are ballot boxes and enough officials to guarantee that the process is free and fair. But that's a pretty thin notion of the concept. Most of us recognise that a truly healthy democracy requires much more. It needs a sophisticated electorate savvy enough to know when it's being lied to and a vigorous, critical media able to dig out the truth.

Yet this rich view of democracy is not admired by all Americans. Leo Strauss, the Chicago-based intellectual whom Time magazine has rated one of the greatest academic influences on Washington, said that the truth might set some free, but not the majority. If Western democracy is to survive, the masses need to be fed a diet of myths, half-truths and lies. Irving Kristol, the so-called godfather of neoconservatism, is quoted as saying:

"The notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn't work."

The truth has certainly become one of the main casualties as the religious and neoconservative Right continues to capture more and more of the media while what remains has become gutless. Those willing to stand up to the Administration and tell it like it is are getting thin on the ground. Yes, the US is a democracy, but an essential organ of any healthy democracy - a strong, critical media - has been rapidly withering away.

Enter Stephen Colbert. A couple of weeks ago, the TV comedian delivered a hilarious, scathing dressing-down to both President George W. Bush and the press at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. The US President, on the same podium just a few yards away, had to sit, smile and take it while Colbert offered mock praise of Bush's claims to be a simple man who "makes decisions with his gut".

But what really had many of the 2,600-strong audience squirming was Colbert's lampooning of the spineless media: "Here's how it works: the President makes the decisions; he's the decider... you people, the press, type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spellcheck and go home. Get to know your family again... write that novel you got kickin' around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the Administration? You know: fiction!"

What happened next? Deafening silence. The media studiously ignored Colbert. The Comedy Central satirist's contribution was conveniently airbrushed out of reports on the proceedings.

Fortunately, that's not the end of the story. Once footage of Colbert reached the web, it crashed servers across the US. The video has been viewed and the transcript read by millions. So far, 57,000 individuals have left personal messages of thanks at a website set up for the purpose ( www.thankyoustephencolbert.org ).

The moral may be that as the traditional media increasingly fall captive to those with little or no interest in telling the truth, Americans will need to rely on the new alternative media to keep their democracy alive.

Stephen Law is a lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London.