Joke: Colbert testifies before Congress
STU: Yes.
GLENN: Stephen Colbert, in something that is-- it's not his fault. It is
Congress making a mockery out of Congress.
STU: It's his fault, too.
PAT: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Stu. I knew you would be with me.
GLENN: Why is it his fault?
STU: Well, because he didn't have to obviously accept to go to Congress and make
an idiot out of himself in front of it.
PAT: He knows it's a mockery.
GLENN: Did he make it into--
STU: Yes. What it's known by the kiddies as a fail, an epic fail. He went up and
tried to do comedy in front of Congress and he looked like an ass and that's
what happened.
PAT: He's doing it for his show. He's doing it for his show. Look. If this were
you and you were testifying before Congress, what, on the FOX show or the radio
show, you would be vilified by every--
GLENN: Of course I would, but that's a different-- look. Here's the thing. I
mean, you want to see Congress just humiliating themselves where I would have
been humiliated had I done that. Let's say the roles were reversed and the
Republicans were in Congress and they said, we want you to come up and we want
you to testify, I wouldn't have done it because I would have thought it was
wrong. Do you know what I mean? You're not doing comedy in Congress at these
times. It's wrong. It's an insult to the American people.
PAT: You may be at some point to testify in the Goldline thing. I mean, that
could happen in a real way.
GLENN: No, I won't. The-- here it is. He goes up in front of Congress and he's
by invitation of the progressive left, of the chairperson. So, this would be
like me being invited to go speak by the conservatives and then what happens?
And then me being humiliated by the conservatives because that's what's
happened. Can you play the audio here? And Stephen Colbert, he didn't have his
mike on at this time. So, you can't really hear his response until the very end,
but listen to what happened. This is John Conyers now looking at Stephen
Colbert, just a little while ago. Stephen Colbert goes to Congress in character
to, quote, testify, and here's what John Conyers says.
CONYERS: But I would like to recommend that now that we've got all this
attention, that you excuse yourself and that you let us get on with the three
witnesses and all the other members there and we-- we're sure it will be shown
on the show tonight and maybe Monday-- I don't know-- you run your show. We
run the committee, but what do you say to that, Stephen? You didn't hear the
question? You don't understand the question? The question was that-- no, I'm
not asking you not to talk. I'm asking you to leave the committee room
completely and submit your statement, instead.
Video: Stephen Colbert in front of Congress |
PAT: Now Colbert is trying to respond, but his mike isn't on.
GLENN: Right. And he looks-- you can see he looks like a regular citizen right
now just like, Wait a minute.
VOICE: I'm wondering if -- Mr. Colbert's microphone is on. He can't be heard,
but whether having posed the question, we could listen to Mr. Lungren and Mr.
Colbert can ponder what you said. I think many are eager to hear his comments.
CONYERS: That's fair enough.
PAT: Now somebody's about to come over and help him turn on a microphone. It's
difficult business.
COLBERT: -- chairwoman and if she would like me to remove myself from the
hearing room, I'm happy to do so. I'm only here at her petition.
VOICE: That is correct.
CONYERS: Thank you very much. That's fair enough.
VOICE: The gentleman's time has expired.
GLENN: Listen to that.
PAT: Okay.
GLENN: That is incredible. I am only here at the chairwoman's invitation. If she
would like me to remove myself, I'm more than willing to do that. That's being
invited over to somebody's house and then the-- you know, other people throwing
the party, the other people at the party, in front of a whole crowd, says, do
you know what? You are so inappropriate to even have you at this party, why
don't you excuse yourself now, in front of everybody and then saying, well,
Okay, I was only invited by this person over here. I mean, thought humiliating.
They have humiliated Stephen--
PAT: Oh, I know. I know
STU: I feel terrible about that.
PAT: It rips my heart out.
GLENN: Guys--
STU: Don't care.
PAT: He's such a good guy.
STU: What a brilliant--
PAT: I hate to see that to a wonderful man like Stephen Colbert.
GLENN: I mean this sincerely. Do you know -- do you know him? Do you know of
him? Do you know his personal life? Is he--
PAT: No.
GLENN: Is he despicable human being?
PAT: I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about what he does. I'm talking
about the charade he does. I'm talking about the viciousness of him. I'm talking
about--
GLENN: Wait, wait, wait.
STU: The boring schtick he does every night, the same thing all the time.
GLENN: His viciousness, his viciousness, you're saying in our time in comedy we
haven't been vicious? When we were doing comedy, Pat, we weren't vicious? Comedy
is ugly.
PAT: Well, but if anything happened to us, we deserved it then. I mean, if--
because of our viciousness, because of the shtick we did and something that
happened and sometimes it did and sometimes it did and sometimes we were set up
and sometimes we were sued by people, then we deserved it. We deserved it.
STU: He's making a mockery of a very serious situation.
PAT: He knows it's a mockery.
STU: He's doing it there to promote his stupid show. He is in character, not
trying to talk about his actual experience. He's in character making jokes to an
audience that isn't laughing, by the way, and it's just a-- it's just pathetic.
It's worse-- yeah. I did watch a good portion of it.
GLENN: What happened?
STU: It was in shtick. All in character and shtick. It was like, oh, it's
really-- he was trying to make jokes about how hard it was to work out there.
It was boring, typical nonsense that he does on his show and being completely
clear, Congress is much worse than him for inviting him. He is--
PAT: Yeah.
STU: I mean, compared to them, he's, you know, a borderline sanity, but, you
know, it's just pathetic for him. He shouldn't have taken it. He looked horrible
doing it. It wasn't funny and Congress is pathetic for allowing that to happen.
That's just a disgrace. It's boring and it's a disgrace.
PAT: He's a willing participant in this kabuki circus. He's a willing
participant in it. So, for him to get humiliated, I don't have an ounce, not an
ounce of sympathy for him, not oneounce. Sorry. I just can't--
STU: I know. I think Conyers comes off looking good there. At least--
PAT: Conyers does.
GLENN: You know, Conyers once in awhile is surprising.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: Conyers once in awhile is surprising. I disagree with a lot that he says
but once in awhile, the man has some dignity.
STU: He does.
PAT: Isn't he the read the bill? Yeah. Same guy.
GLENN: I get a kick out of these people who say read the bill, but once in a
while, he'll say something -- well, for instance, what was it with the ACORN
thing? Remember, he was, like, do you know what? Maybe we should have this, we
should have this hearing. Don't shut this down. Let's listen to this.
PAT: They shut him down.
GLENN: They shut him down big time.
PAT: But he was right at the beginning saying, yeah, let's look into it. He
didn't do it.
GLENN: No, he didn't. He didn't follow through. Who is the woman who came in and
saved Stephen?
PAT: I don't know. She was the committee chair. I don't know who that is.
GLENN: You know, I think that-- you know, look. We are just in a--
everything's being-- everything's changing. Everything is changing and no one
knows what anything is anymore. Congress is being made a joke. There's no way
Stephen Colbert would have done that five years ago. Would he have done that?
PAT: I don't know. Again, I--
GLENN: I don't know him.
PAT: I don't know him.
GLENN: But, I mean, you know, you don't-- you don't make Congress into a
mockery more than they already are. The institution of Congress, you don't do
that. Congress wouldn't have invited five years ago and if they were wrong--
they would have invited me-- it would have been wrong. It was wrong to take it.
STU: It would have been bad if you were doing character. I mean, you know, if
you were--
GLENN: No, no. Yeah, if you're invited-- if he did that and he was, like, you
know, go and work and then testify because you're a star or whatever --
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: -- you know, that's like bringing--
PAT: That's different.
Glenn: Yeah. That's bringing George Clooney, who I thinkGeorge --
PAT: Any of those guys.
GLENN: George Clooney actually believes in the horrors of Darfur and Rwanda.
PAT: And fighting against it.
GLENN: Yeah. He believes that -- no. He believes in--
PAT: I just wanted to make that clear.
GLENN: He believes deeply in it. He is sincere about that. He is. I've talked to
him personally. He is sincere about that and I respect him for that. I disagree
with his answers, but he is sincere about it. So, to have somebody like George
Clooney or somebody like that come and speak on something, you can understand
it. In character, no, and then beyond that, I mean, I just-- I guess I feel bad
for Stephen Colbert because he was invited into their house.
PAT: Yeah.
GLENN: And it wasn't an opposition member who said this is a mockery. It was
their own team. The people who invited him embarrassed him.
STU: Yeah, but he is going to get on there and he is going to get all sorts of
coverage for this. Everyone is going to watch it and, of course, the media is
going to blindly praise him for being funny when he wasn't, because he always
gets that and, you know, for him it's all upside. The only thing he was supposed
to do there was actually be funny which he was unsuccessful with, but that's
fine. He's going to get praised for it, anyway.
GLENN: I haven't seen it and you have a thing with these two. You have been done
with them for about a year on-- you just-- I mean, you used to think they were
funny.
STU: I never was a big Colbert guy, I will say. I still think Stewart is
occasionally funny. It's a little boring after all these years, but, still,
Colbert is the same shtick every day. As you said, it's the dragon cat every
night for a half an hour. It's a Saturday Night Live sketch.
GLENN: Okay. Hang on just a second, though. Isn't-- David Letterman's top 10
list, I mean, how-- that started in 1985.
STU: Yeah.
PAT: But that's only one little segment in his show. It doesn't hurt that much.
When you're doing-- is it half an hour or an hour?
STU: Half an hour, I think.
PAT: Half an hour every day of the same stupid, inane thing. Okay. , we get it.
We got it five years ago. It's still not working. Move on. Do you know what it
worked as? It worked as a segment-- didn't it start as a segment on Stewart's
show? Isn't that what the deal was?
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: He was an investigative reporter and he was very funny.
STU: It was funny then. It was funny then, but, I mean, -- and everyone treats
him like he's this big success. He comes out. He does an interview for a few
minutes. He has, you know, a couple of bits here and there and he drops off,
what, 40% of Jon Stewart's ratings. Congratulations. What a miracle success
story. Oh, wow. We should all surround him and praise him and call him in front
of Congress. It's just a boring sketch. It's a sketch every night. I mean, it's
not-- he's dropping 40% of Stewart's ratings, 40%. How is that a success?!
GLENN: Stu loses sleep over this.
STU: No. I don't care. I just think it's funny. It's one of those things that
he's built up as we are supposed to take his nonsense seriously. Okay. Maybe if
you wanted to have-- when all the Republicans were in control, maybe it was
ballsy to have this character that's making fun of the right. Have you noticed?
You have control of the entire government. If you were going to be a bad ass and
go against the grain, you would have someone out there parroting liberals, but
you don't because it's the same shtick over and over and over again. Amen
