Rummy Gets Colbertized

I think this is great: Stephen Colbert has been inducted into the vernacular. In reference to yesterday's episode in which former CIA analyst Ray McGovern called out Rumsfeld on his pathological lies, a French blogger coined the phrase "Colberise" -- to hold a politician accountable, face to face. Read Marty Kaplan's piece on Huffington Post:

I Love Ray McGovern

Add former CIA analyst Ray McGovern to the list of patriots not only willing to speak truth to power, but also able on the spot to cite chapter and verse to back up their accusations with facts.

On a good day, if we're really lucky, a media account of a sparring match between the likes of Rumsfeld and Cheney and some adversary will also include file footage of them saying exactly what they deny they ever said. The niceties of MSM coverage preclude using the word "lie," so juxtaposing matter with anti-matter is the closest most networks or papers will come to mentioning He Who Must Not Be Named (you know, Pinocchio). But Ray McGovern not only had the goods on Rumsfeld -- he more than met the SecDef's condescending demurrals with withering facts. It's hard not to contrast his courage and steadfastness in real time with the Pentagon brass (and the ex-brass Secretary of State) who wilted under the scorn of the neocon crackpot consensus.

A headline on ManuMilitari coins the perfect description of what McGovern did: "Rumsfeld se fait 'colberiser.'" I know, it's in French, the language of frog-eaters who wouldn't follow Bush blindly into Iraq. You can guess what it means: Rumsfeld gets Colberted. The blogger who posted that defines it this way: "Colberiser: Régler face à face, ses comptes avec un politicien." It means: to hold a politician accountable, face to face.

This time around, it won't be enough to say that Ray McGovern wasn't funny enough, or that he was rude, or went on too long, or the rest of the courtier dyspepsia being attributed to Colbert. McGovern is doing what, shockingly, national Democrats haven't been doing; he's doing what the kewl kids in prom clothes in the Fourth Estate haven't been doing; he's doing what Left Blogistan and a handful of columnists have been doing, and what born-again furies like Chris Matthews are at long last doing. "Civil discourse" is the last refuge of scoundrels. It can't be long before the ideological bubble boys who deceived us into this misbegotten folly retreat to ticketed events and the comforting embrace of Fox News. Yet wasn't it the codpiece-in-chief who said, "You can run - but you can't hide"? It'd be sweet if that impotent bragodoccio finally came home to roost.