A few years ago, William Petersen, the actor who played Gil Grissom on CSI, was asked to come to Congress to testify during hearings on whether or not CSI Labs should have better funding. Now, I like William Petersen, I used to like Gil Grissom (until they decided he should get involved with a dominatrix for a few episodes) but why ask him, an actor, to talk about the real issues facing crime labs? Well, I guess because people will tune in to the hearings to watch an actor - whom they believe to be a real live CSI, even though he's appearing under his own name) when they wouldn't tune in to just some faceless CSI guy.
(Much as evil soap opera stars have apparently gotten letters from the dawn of TV (1950s onward, from audience members who believe their characters are real. Or those people who wrote letters to Raymond Burr's Perry Mason, or Robert Young's Marcus Welby, asking him for help.)
Anyway, Stephen Colbert testified in front of Congress yesterday, in character as his faux news personality. It was just ridiculous. (Now, I didn't watch it, and I don't care what Colbert's politics are. It's the fact that he's a fictional character that irritates me!)
[Having said that...I do wonder if Rush actually watched Colbert's bit. Because according to the Christian Science Monitor, Colbert was skewering Democrats, not Republicans, in his appearance. In any event, it wll probably be up at YouTube shortly so people can see for themselves.]
Rush:
RUSH: I got a lot of e-mails today. "Rush, would you comment on the Stephen Colbert business before Congress today?" Yeah, I'll be happy to comment on it. I should preface this by telling you I have never watched the show, so I only know about Colbert by reputation. So before I comment, let me ask a question to make sure I understand this correctly. I've never watched The Daily Show, either. I've never seen that. I don't even know what number Comedy Central is on my DirecTV tuner. But anyway, isn't Colbert's shtick that he is a faux conservative? A faux Republican? I mean, he's there to make fun of Republicans, right? His shtick is that we're stupid, arrogant, all of the clichés -- racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe all that -- right? Is that pretty much what his shtick? (interruption) Okay.
Then this is not an accident today, and it's not just Zoe Lofgren, the committee chairwoman, wanting to be entertained. Now, you could look at this one of two ways. You could say, "Here we are in the midst of a total economic meltdown, Congress' approval ratings are at an all-time low, and they have a comedian up in character to talk about immigration to mock the people who are in favor of closing the border, to mock people who want to correct our illegal immigration problem, to mock." I think in the midst of an economic downturn you could say that this is just a thumb in all of our eyes. But at the same time I think there's a point here. If I understand Colbert correctly -- and you really gotta tell me if I'm wrong about this. But if Colbert's shtick is to make Republicans look like idiots then it makes total sense he would come up there and say what he said today at an immigration hearing on whether illegals ought to be allowed to pick fruits and vegetables.
So I think Colbert's appearance is nothing more than a political attempt to discredit people who are opposed to open borders, who are opposed to amnesty. I think it's why he was brought up there. The Democrats asked him up there. He goes up there in character. He makes conservatives who favor closing the borders and oppose amnesty look like idiots. I think a lot of people look at this and say, "Wow, is that really funny. Why, he wanted to introduce his colonoscopy into the Congressional Record." Yeah, but what's his character? What do people who watch Colbert think he is? So I don't think this is just the House wanting to entertain itself and have a few yuks. I think, as with everything the liberals do, it is an effort to divert attention from their own failures and to make us look like a bunch of Looney Toons and idiots.
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