What we witnessed at the WH Correspondents Dinner was a true miracle - that anyone walked out of that room alive. If you haven't already, go witness this act of providence.

Shadrach was played by the popular press - the liberal media despised near equally from "the right" and "the left" - the same liberal media that perceives this abhorrence from politically interested people as a sign that it is "doing something right" - the same liberal media that has fluffed the news hour until there is no news left, even on the 24-hour cable channels.

The role of Meschach was played by the military generals who still swear loyalty to Rumsfeld, and coincidentally, are still working for the military.

One is tempted to think of Stephen Colbert in the role of Nebuchadnezzar - but no, the wicked King was absent from this performance. Colbert was the furnace, and he overplayed his role. Where W-bednigo and his friends are meant to walk out unsinged, Colbert forgot this was a staged roast and left third degree burns on the trio. The miracle that they even survived must have been the result of actual divine providence, rather than careful stage-managing of the stunts.

I believe the President and First lady - and their staff - were truly surprised that their hostile roaster had the temerity to put on the hot act. Normally even the president's media foes are reduced to scraping and fauning before the big round Presidential Seal while actually in the room with the Leader of the Free World. That Colbert behaved as though the Emperor were a human being, and laughed at His invisible attire must have been quite a start.

Best lines - "the last third is usually backwash." Touche, Mr. and Mrs. Diehards. Number two wasn't a line - it was the delivery of a big, non-verbal vaffanculo to Justice Scalia, who alone was able to prove that he could laugh at himself with real merriment. Kudos to Nino.

Peerless satire, and much needed.