# Why you should watch The Colbert Report **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 9, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293 "2010-02-09T17:28:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/21 "2010-02-09T23:11:42Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Who else could call Palin a fucking retard AND get appointed part of a Winter Olympic Team all in the same year when it’s just February? And to top it he’s been to Iraq. Maybe he really **does** deserve that Nobel Peace Prize! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![SpoilerVirgin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/4491bb/32.png) [@SpoilerVirgin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SpoilerVirgin)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/22 "2010-02-09T23:23:41Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Who else could call Palin a fucking retard AND get appointed part of a Winter Olympic Team all in the same year when it’s just February? And to top it he’s been to Iraq. You forgot _won a Grammy_. He makes me laugh numerous times _every single show_, and that’s more than enough reason for me to watch. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/23 "2010-02-09T23:43:15Z")
[Hijack]The Dutch referred to black slaves as “negars”, which basically meant black and obviously has a kinship to negro and as near as I can tell was not pejorative in and of itself, though it very soon became the basis of racial pejoratives. There was a clear distinction between _negro_ and _nigger_ (or _neeger_ in some 17th century documents] within a generation of the first slaves arriving; _nigra_, which you still hear from very old white people, was always, as Dio said, a hybrid- one that was jussssst this side of respectable at one time but never proper (i.e. you’d never see it in a legal document) and today is not appreciably better than _nigger_. (Hijacking a hijack: I’ve come to loathe references to ‘the n word’, though I will use the term ‘n word’, because imo it gives it more power.) I actually wish Negro would lose its stigma because black isn’t really accurate (and has its own baggage) while ‘African-American’ is too limiting and also inaccurate in the way it’s used. It’s fine for referring to Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston as African-American writers since both were writers of African descent and their race and their nationality both informed their writings, but references to sickle cell anemia as an African-American disease (which I’ve seen) or if Charlize Theron had a child with an American citizen it would not really be an ‘African American’, and while Eamonn Walker has played African-American characters he’s not African American. I’ve read the term Congoid in anthropological writings- it means basically what Negro used to, though perhaps a little more precise- black skinned sub Saharan Africans and their descendants- but somehow Congoid seems more racist than Negro. I wonder if the term ‘Bantu’ for the ethnic group could be popularized- it doesn’t have that much baggage and it’s pleasant enough sounding. Of course _Caucasian_ doesn’t really work either, but ‘Euro-American’ could refer to anything from Eamonn Walker’s kids with an American mother to first generation Italian immigrants to Jamestown settlers to Lena Horne, so I suppose it at least has a use in distinction. Knowing full well we’re all mutts (I’m slightly whiter than a Julie Andrews Christmas album in appearance but I’ve found at least two lines of descent from African slaves in or before the 18th century) and that technically speaking there’s no such thing as race it is nevertheless useful to have a term for racial groups. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/24 "2010-02-09T23:50:46Z")
I wonder sometimes how Colbert keeps his sanity when he’s playing a guy with his own name and background but who’s his polar opposite in some ways. (I don’t think the real Colbert is a flaming liberal but he is an intellectual and probably left leaning unlike his alter ego.) I saw him on an interview with Larry King once and it was like seeing an interview with Sybil; he’d answer some questions in character and others as the former Stephen Colber **t** (i.e. completely seriouisly, including questions about the deaths of his father and brothers in a plane crash or his own experiences with drugs and alcohol) and it was almost confusing. Colbert’s also quite an athlete, which he’s demonstrated several times on the series. Even his mostly-for-laughs stunts with the speed skating team were pretty impressive for a 45 year old. One of his former SCTV alums- I can’t remember which- talked about her friendship in SCTV days with both Colbert and Steve Carrell. She wouldn’t say which was which, but she said that at the time both Steves were bachelors and one was a monk who was as likely to go home and read a book as to go out and the other was a major partier and horndog who sometimes had two or more dates on the same night, but she wouldn’t say which was which. My guess is Colbert was the partyboy, but otoh he (at least until recently- don’t know if he still does) attended Mass every Sunday and sometimes taught Sunday school, so who knows. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/25 "2010-02-09T23:54:36Z")
Colbert’s Catholicism is not phony, and not recently discovered. I’d be surprised if he was the party boy. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2010, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/26 "2010-02-09T23:56:31Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Colbert’s Catholocism is not phony, and not recently discovered. As evidenced by the fact he’s the youngest of 11 children.😃 He did admit to having an experimentation with illegal drugs however, saying basically he’d tried everything but IV stuff at least once. I don’t think it was ever serious enough to require treatment, but it would imply he has a wilder side as well. One difference between him and his alter-ego is in ancestry. In character he refers to his southern roots and ancestry; in reality while he was born in Charleston, SC, both of his parents were born outside the south: his father was from NYC and his mother was from Missouri. Another delineation between the two are of course Dartmouth and Bob Jones as alma maters (both of which are claimed by Colbert Report Colbert). ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/27 "2010-02-10T00:34:05Z")
I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” Colbert is backing her position. She’s saying that the hope and change didn’t come and he’s saying that when hope and change don’t come that’s bad. He’s dissing Obama far more than he is her. Yeah, probably he’s meaning it more in the sense of, “Well with you we’d definitely not have hope or change.” But that’s just an ad hominem attack. Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. ---
**Author:** ![TWDuke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e495f1/32.png) [@TWDuke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TWDuke)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/28 "2010-02-10T00:41:53Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. > > Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? > Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” > > Colbert is backing her position. She’s saying that the hope and change didn’t come and he’s saying that when hope and change don’t come that’s bad. He’s dissing Obama far more than he is her. Yeah, probably he’s meaning it more in the sense of, “Well with you we’d definitely not have hope or change.” But that’s just an ad hominem attack. No, he’s implying that she implied that hoping for change was foolish, and he’s pretending to agree with that position and put in blunter terms in order to satirize it. > [@](#): > > Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. > Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. > > Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. It looks like you completely missed the awkward pause and the gesture indicating that he (Stephen Colbert) was reading from a teleprompter (with the unstated subtext that it is normal and customary for commentators and politicians to do so). The word “moron” was directed at Obama. Again, satire. > [@](#): > > If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. Nah, he just needs an audience that can recognize satire. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/29 "2010-02-10T00:45:53Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. > > Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? > Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” He’s ridiculing her for ridiculing hope and change as ideals. > [@](#): > > Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. > Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. He was mock laughing WITH her as a way to mock the utter witlessness of mocking Obama for using a teleprompter. > [@](#): > > Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. These are both critiques of Palin’s tactics, not _ad hominems_ againmst Palin. > [@](#): > > If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. That wasn’t the point at all. The namecalling was used to ridicule Palin’s own disingenuous logic, not as a simplistic _ad hominem_. Maybe you need to watch the clip again. It doesn’t appear that you really got it. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/30 "2010-02-10T00:46:35Z")
I never read _War and Peace_ all the way through, but the first three pages was nonsense. You have no idea whether the author wants war or if he’s for Napoleon or for the Tsar, so why read a bunch of wishy washiness about a war Tolstoy didn’t even fight in and you already know who won it? ---
**Author:** ![Bosstone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/22d042/32.png) [@Bosstone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosstone)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/31 "2010-02-10T01:08:28Z")
Colbert/Stewart 2012! ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/32 "2010-02-10T02:02:43Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. > > Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? > Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” > > Colbert is backing her position. She’s saying that the hope and change didn’t come and he’s saying that when hope and change don’t come that’s bad. He’s dissing Obama far more than he is her. Yeah, probably he’s meaning it more in the sense of, “Well with you we’d definitely not have hope or change.” But that’s just an ad hominem attack. > > Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. > Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. > > Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. > > If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. Oh, oh my. Oh dear. I’m still pissed about Jonathan Swift eating babies. Bastard. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/33 "2010-02-10T02:05:30Z")
> [@elelle](#): > > Oh, oh my. Oh dear. > I’m still pissed about Jonathan Swift eating babies. Bastard. Well, that was centuries ago. They’d be dead by now anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/34 "2010-02-10T02:07:14Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. > > Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? > Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” > > Colbert is backing her position. She’s saying that the hope and change didn’t come and he’s saying that when hope and change don’t come that’s bad. He’s dissing Obama far more than he is her. Yeah, probably he’s meaning it more in the sense of, “Well with you we’d definitely not have hope or change.” But that’s just an ad hominem attack. > > Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. > Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. > > Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. > > If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. Well, this one is easy. You don’t get it. Unfortunately, explaining the joke doesn’t make it a joke any more, at least, not for you. ---
**Author:** ![GameHat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ed655f/32.png) [@GameHat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GameHat)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/35 "2010-02-10T02:22:16Z")
God Bless Stephen Colbert. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/36 "2010-02-10T02:54:58Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Well, that was centuries ago. They’d be dead by now anyway. Are you implying that my post is retarded??? Centuries ago? Yep, they’re dead, but they’re babies, who would be more or less eaten at the impetus of Mr. Swift’s writing, but, nevertheless important as human beings. I’m profoundly offended at your insensitive jizzblinket temporal worditude. ---
**Author:** ![Livardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/43a26b/32.png) [@Livardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Livardo)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/37 "2010-02-10T03:00:22Z")
Simply epic! ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/38 "2010-02-10T03:13:16Z")
> [@elelle](#): > > Are you implying that my post is retarded??? Centuries ago? Yep, they’re dead, but they’re babies, who would be more or less eaten at the impetus of Mr. Swift’s writing, but, nevertheless important as human beings. I’m profoundly offended at your insensitive jizzblinket temporal worditude. Many of my ancestors were dead Irish babies (obviously some got better) and I resent your attitude that my attitude about them is condescending! ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/39 "2010-02-10T06:12:43Z")
[http://www.sarahpalinisafuckingretard.com/](http://www.sarahpalinisafuckingretard.com/) ---
**Author:** ![ekweizn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7c8e57/32.png) [@ekweizn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ekweizn)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293/40 "2010-02-10T07:39:52Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > I didn’t watch all the way through, but the first minute at least was pretty lame. > > Sarah Palin: How’s that Hope and Change wurkin for ya? > Colbert: Yeah, there’s a campaign for ya, “Abandon all hope for change.” > > Colbert is backing her position. She’s saying that the hope and change didn’t come and he’s saying that when hope and change don’t come that’s bad. He’s dissing Obama far more than he is her. Yeah, probably he’s meaning it more in the sense of, “Well with you we’d definitely not have hope or change.” But that’s just an ad hominem attack. > > Sarah Palin: Obama just uses a teleprompter to sound good. > Colbert: Haha ahah ha, ya moron. > > Again, it’s just an ad hominem attack. > > If namecalling is the best you can do as a zinger against Sarah Palin, you need a better writing crew. I really really love this post. That is all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-you-should-watch-the-colbert-report/528293.md?page=3)