Stephen Colbert got a lot of comedy mileage by creating his own Super PAC. Colbert is the latest in a long line of such political satirists. Older readers may recall the Youth International Party (or ‘Yippies)’ that ran a boar hog named Pigasus for president in the 1968 elections under the slogan “Pork power!” Or perennial candidate Pat Paulsen, with his woebegone look and speeches, also from that era.

Colbert is, however, far more effective because he is taking on the very heart of the system, money, showing how it is making a mockery of democracy. As Dahlia Lithwik pointed out, his comedy was far more effective than earnest analysis at showing how absurd things had become once the Citizens United decision came down from the Supreme Court.

Once his efforts started getting widespread notice it was only a matter of time that the mainstream media would turn its guns on Stephen Colbert’s satirization of the campaign system because the media are likely still smarting from Colbert’s speech at the White House correspondents dinner in 2006 where he told them to their faces how they had descended into caricatures of what journalism should be.

Over the last five years you people were so good — over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn’t want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew. But, listen, let’s review the rules. Here’s how it works. The President makes decisions. He’s the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put ’em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking 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!

There was uneasy laughter and grumblings from the assembled reporters afterwards that he was not funny but they still did not get it. They were not the audience for his humor, they were the targets. The audience was the nation at large and they loved it with the video going viral. (You can read the transcript of his speech here or better still watch it here. It was brilliant, except for the end with the somewhat tedious video at the end with Helen Thomas that begins at the 17:00 minute mark that you can skip.)

The Washington press corps reporters make their living feeding the illusion that what we are seeing is democracy at work but Colbert is shattering that myth to bits with his Super PAC shenanigans and they are grumbling again. We see Chuck Todd of NBC News and Colbert I. King of the Washington Post complaining that Colbert is wrong to make fun of the process and that he is somehow undermining democracy.

One can see why they are concerned. These journalists and commentators make their living from endlessly analyzing the stage show, with every move and twist and turn of the visible players providing further fodder for them. A long and convoluted drama with many characters coming and going works well for their purposes. It would hurt their entire business to have the curtain drawn back to show that whatever the election is and whoever the candidates are, the real winners are always the same: the oligarchy headed by the banks and Goldman Sachs and their deep pockets.

If they dislike this sham being ridiculed, the solution is simple: If you don’t want people ridiculing the process, then don’t have a process that is so easy to ridicule.