I think Stephen will accomplish an excellent job either he will let his closest friend, Mr. Colbert, run the show or if he will give a chance to let the “man” ride along the breakers… Hopefully it will be a balanced act of the two, an eye-opener for whoever thinks only black & white is the way to go… So far, Colbert is the only one to embody all the shade of rainbow necessary to make this excruciatingly long, expensive, corrupted and decadent process more interesting and possibly involving more people in the… “black box voting machines system…”

1) “Extreme and unoriginal…” I don’t think it’s particularly extreme (especially in today’s crazy political world) or unoriginal (what does a Robin Williams film have to do with his character? as Gaia Faye said above me, that seems irrelevant).

2) “It threatens to get old.” The Colbert Report itself, a few days in, threatened to get old. Nobody thought it would last for more than eight weeks, let alone two highly successful years. Let’s wait a while to judge the effort on the “threatening to get old” front.

3) “A spoof candidate will get in the way.” I don’t know that anybody knows this yet, either. It all depends on how the writers and him play it out. Yes, they have a huge responsibility to respect the political process, but the effort – if played correctly – might add to the discourse, not take from it. As several have said above me, let’s trust them! They’re a group of brilliant smart funny savvy people, and I’m sure they’re putting a lot of thought into this.

As for oversaturation-of-Colbert, I’d rather wait and see what he does as this moves along to decide whether or not it’ll flop. Using Russert’s interview as some kind of crystal ball is faulty. I can’t be the only one who got frustrated that Russert was asking “Stephen” about the actual Stephen’s opinions, referring to quotes the character would not say or things the character would not do. He was muddying the waters and the joke didn’t come through clearly, if at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if that threw Stephen off.

Though I suppose Stephen has a responsibility for that, to be careful as to who he agrees to be interviewed by and maybe even to supply some instruction before it. It’s a rocky start, but let’s see where it goes before deciding he’s going to mess up.

Bringing up Man of the Year is irrelevant, as anyone who’s seen that movie can tell you the people who made it didn’t seem to know if they wanted to be funny or serious. And also because the main character was running seriously, not as a joke. And all other details that make that comparison make no sense at all.

And similarly, I don’t think anything he’s done with his candidacy is outside the realm of what’s been done before on the show. To me a run for the presidency feels like the logical next step for the character to take. His responses have been consistent with the character, too – using lots of words to say nothing, declaring his views loudly and often, not budging his position on anything. Pat Paulsen, running as a comedian, could make the blatantly satirical and biting jokes (and I think that’s what I’d expect if, say, Jon Stewart were to run). Stephen is running as a character, though, and while he’s a comedic character, he takes himself and his campaign very seriously, so he *can’t* take it in that ha-ha direction and still be true to the character and the campaign. It’s at least one step beyond any previous joke candidacy. It’s a very difficult position, because he can’t just *be funny*, he has to rely on others to play along by getting the joke and then still taking him at face value, and then *further* rely on the audience to grasp the satire. He’s playing an extended improv scene with a bunch of schmucks who haven’t learned how to “yes-and”, basically!

But anyway, I’m not overdosed (yet); I’m fascinated with the layers and the implications to this whole thing! And I think as we see it play out over the next few weeks/months, it will continue to be awesome.