Feb
01
Episode 4016 (01/31/2008)
By
Section 1: Republicans debate timetables, Ron Paul sounds the alarm, Stephen votes with his gut.
Special Guest: Tim Harford; author – The Logic of Life
Section 2: People Destroying America: Lowell Kuvin of Coral Gables, Florida.
Section 3: Andrew Napolitano: “The Judge” and author – A Nation Of Sheep.
In closing: Good night, everybody. Sleep tight, little sheep.
Guest Plug:
NOTABLE MOMENTS
- That is so lovely. That is just like lying on the beach and having the sun scream at you. Which I would love to have happen someday.
- Beautiful backdrop of Air Force One, though I think Mitt Romney was overdressed for the evening [Graphic of Romney dressed as a pilot]. He’s trying to project *power*.
- McCain has been leveling some devastating blows at Romney over national security. He accused him of an unspeakable act. Jim? [rolls footage of McCain saying "he said that he wanted a timetable for withdrawl."] Oh!
- Clearly, that means betrayal of our troops, waving the white flag to America’s enemies. And this accusation lay like a pall over the debate last night until Romney stepped up and put that rumor to bed. [clip of Romney from debate saying "I have never, ever, supported a specific timetable for exit from Iraq"]
- Then, McCain stepped up a woke that rumor up. [McCain saying "Of course, he said he wanted a timetable."]
- Last April, Romney, in an interview with ABC news, said that President Bush and Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki should get together – privately, no one should know – and they should set some guide posts, some milestones, some sort of schedule, call it a calendar, a set period, well… there’s a better word for it. Jim? [edited clip of Romney saying "timetable".] Yes. That is the word.
- What McCain knows is that word, when used back then, when the war was so unpopular, was not just any word. That word was a message. That word was a code. That word was a code. That word was a … Well, McCain says it better. [debate clip of McCain saying "Timetables was the buzz word,*edit* timetables was the buzz word *edit* timetables were the buzz word *edit* timetables was the buzz word *edit* the buzz word was timetables.] There you have it!
- It is so clear what it meant. It meant, as a buzz word, what it was saying was, “Welcome, Terrorists! Would you like to date my sister?”
- War hero said it, therefore Romney betrayed our troops.
- Breaking news, ladies and gentlemen. A shocking development from the Republican debate last night when decorated war hero Jon McCain shocked everyone by betraying our troops, using a buzz word. [Clips of McCain saying the word "timetables" repeatedly.]
- I just don’t understand. Why would a war hero… why would someone who was given everything by America betray his country by using the word timetable? *looking shocked* Oh. My. God! *looking lost* What have I become?
- Ron Paul, of course, had to put his $2 bill on the table over this whole argument over timetables. Listen to the slathering jabber, the insane argument he laid forth about the Iraq War: [Ron Paul "How many men are you willing to let die for this? For something that has nothing to do with our national security? There were no al-Qaeda there. Had nothing to do with 9/11 and there was no threat to our national security, they never committed aggression. It's unconstitutional, it's an undeclared war, yet we have these silly arguments going on about who said what when."]
- [Stephen holding a bottle of water] I gotta agree with Senator McCain – that kind of crazy you wash down.
- Ron Paul! I don’t know where he gets this stuff. He’s got a million of them and he’s been doing it for years. We dug around… Jimmy, we’ve got some classic Ron Paul, don’t we? Show the one we found this morning [clip from debate in b/w with Dec 6, 1941 date and Stephen's voice over "The Japanese are going to bomb Pearl Harbor! There's a telegram in the War Office! Tell President Roosevelt!"]
- I could watch that all day! We’ve got one a little bit older, don’t we Jim? [dated May 5, 1937: "You can't put hydrogen in a Zeppelin! It's going to burn! Oh, the humanities. Oh, the humanities!"]
- There’s one really classic one we dug up earlier. What’s that really, really old one we got, Jim? [clip in sepia tone dated June 21, 1633: "The Earth goes around the Sun! The Earth goes around the Sun!"]
- I agree. I know what you’re saying folks. It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
- I know I’m going to vote for one of these guys up there – I don’t know which one. I know I’m going to go with my gut. I’m not going to go with my brain, ok? You cannot make the decisions in your life based on logic – no matter what my guest tonight says.
- Do you think we pick presidents logically? We go with the guy we want to have a beer with.
- Wait – are you saying that our gut is our brain?
- What you’re saying is: we can make laziness work for us. Does procrastination work into this any place? And how about obesity? Because America’s way ahead on that.
- I’m glad you said that, because teen agers don’t get that message enough! Kids, smoking is cool. You heard it from Tim Harford. It’s in a book!
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- Stephen: What about unprotected sex? That’s not a logical decision.
- Harford: Are you offering?
- Stephen: You, Sir, you cannot afford me.
- You just said that straight sex is Coke and oral sex is Pepsi. That’s what you just said. And you’re saying right now that the young people are the Pepsi generation. And I’m not sure, I am really not sure which one of them is our sponsor, but I’d like to apologize to one of them.
- It’s time for a rare apology. Last night I said some things about the state of Florida – I didn’t really mean. For instance, I implied that I wanted the state to be swallowed by the ocean – that’s a little far. And tonight I would like to offer an olive branch by saying some nice things about the Sunshine State. For instance, they’ve got some very famous residents that they can be proud of. For instance, what about the handsome young man that ‘Time’, ‘Newsweek’, and the New York Times described as “pleasantly handsome…”, “…piercingly intelligent…”, “…dapperly dressed…” and “…Kennedy-esque…”? None other than 70’s superstar serial killer Ted Bundy!
- And, Ladies… he’s dead. Because they caught him and gave him the electric chair. Good for you, Florida. That is law and order.
- They are on the front lines, now, fighting the people who are destroying America.
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- Realtor: Pickup trucks are not allowed to be parked on the street or in your driveway overnight.
- Stephen [voice over]: Why? Because pick-up trucks are a gateway vehicle.
- Mayor: It’s pick up trucks today, tomorrow it would be larger trucks, and then the next day, probably, commercial vehicles, and finally we might have swamp buggies out in front.
- Stephen [voice over]: And nobody wants swamp buggies.
- We found a constitutional expert who disagreed. [Clip of Stephen with chyron reading "Stephen Colbert. Expert"]
- It’s hard to know what the Founding Fathers would make of this because, at the time of the American Revolution, there were no parking violations because, well, there was nothing to park. If Ben Franklin ask you if he could park his truck out back, it was best just to say no.
- Tragically, Kuvin won the latest round in court. And parking is just the beginning for this man. Nothing Americans hold dear is safe from his axles of evil.
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- Stephen [voice over]:Watch out, America. He’s Lowell Kuvin and he admits he is destroying America.
- Kuvin: I’m Lowell Kuvin, and I am not destroying America.
- Stephen [voice over]: Close enough.
- *clip of pick up truck backing up over a miniature Statue of Liberty*
- My guest tonight is only the 2nd man from Fox News brave enough to visit my show. Please welcome the thickest head of hair in the criminal justice system: Judge Andrew Napolitano.
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- Stephen: Welcome to *my* courtroom, Sir!
- Napolitano: Remain seated.
- Stephen: Oh, I will. If I get up, there will be trouble. Now, Judge, speaking of hair, you work with the Brown-Haired-Guy-Who-Is-Not-Steve-Doocy. How is he doing?
- Napolitano: He is an unbelievable admirer of yours…
- Stephen: I don’t blame him.
- Napolitano: As is everybody that works at Fox.
- Stephen: Well, I gave them a microwave oven.
- I get a sense from this book that you don’t think that’s such a great idea, a nation of sheep. I love sheep! Let’s hear a big baaaaah.
- I am Freedom!
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- Napolitano: You love the 1st amendment.
- Stephen: When it applies to me.
- Sheep aren’t so bad, as long as they have good shepherds. People like you and me and the folks over a Fox tell them what to do, and what to think, and what to feel and then they live their lives peacefully without thinking about facts or logic, God help us. Look how happy my sheep are!
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- Napolitano: Who do you think you are? Bill O’Reilly?
- Stephen: Sometimes.
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- Napolitano: Do you think Fox would ever hire someone who works for the ACLU?
- Stephen: You might be a mole!
- I’m a very strict constructionist, and I believe we should only have judges who interpret the Constitution the way the President wants.
- Napolitano: That’s why we have a constitution to restrain the Government, Bill!
- It’s not going to get any better than that.
Fangirl Suit Report: Black suit; Cream shirt with French cuffs; Multi-tone maroon striped tie; Red WristSTRONG bracelet.
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22 Comments
February 1st, 2008 at 9:32 am
It delights me to no end that “the Judge” slipped up and called Stephen “Bill” in his attempt to talk some sense into Stephen.
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February 1st, 2008 at 11:15 am
Great interview, or greatest interview (aside from Andrew Young and potentially Papa Bear as well, of course)? The Judge played along so nicely it was a wonderful discourse to watch — I think my cheeks still hurt from laughing so hard. And yes, lulubelle, the fact that he called Stephen “Bill” at the very end elicited an “Oh no he didn’t!” from myself and my other half in our living room.
(Fangirl aside: Fantastic suit — Stephen can really pull off a black pinstripe [it looked like a pinstripe suit to me, at least]. Red is definitely his color.)
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February 1st, 2008 at 1:15 pm
i wonder if the “bill” was secretly planned, but if it wasn’t, that slip couldn’t have been more apt, especially since stephen was playing closer to o’reilly than usual that night.
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February 1st, 2008 at 2:19 pm
@lisa
Great interview, or greatest interview (aside from Andrew Young and potentially Papa Bear as well, of course)?
- did you even see the interview with Bill-O? I think it’s close to worst ever. They could only get like 4 minutes of usable material out of the whole thing. I’m not sure what your “potentially” means here, but if it potentially involves Bill-O’s ego, he’d rather roll over and play dead than let Stephen be funny.
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February 1st, 2008 at 3:18 pm
@ Jennie,
Hey, not trying to be offensive here…
No one thought the, “If you’re an act, then what am I?” line was hilarious? No? Just me then? We all know that Bill O’Reilly is a tool, but I think there’s a chance that they played off each other’s “bigness” for that interview. And, if there are back stories about what was cut out, etc. I haven’t read any of them. I’m just going based on the interview itself.
All I meant was the “momentous-ness” of the interview, in that since Stephen emulates Bill’s ego in his own character in the form of satire, that it was sort of neat to see them interact with each other. That’s all…no harm, no foul, I hope. Perhaps not the *best* of comparisons I could’ve made though…
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February 1st, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I laughed all the way thru the Harford interview…so the coolness of smoking is now *official*… ;D
And the whole…”are you offering? .. coke/pepsi”…sequence was genuinely hysterical. lol
@Jennie
Thanks for supplying so many links to references that people may not generally know.
@Lisa
I think I understand what you mean. The BillO interview on CR was interesting/noteworthy, NOT because it was funny=ha ha, but because it was funny=weird. (and, seemingly, highly informative about Colbert’s personality)
Watching BillO fold so quickly, pretending that his vicious behaviour was *just* a persona, was fascinating. He was ‘fighting’ Colbert by going, metaphorically, limp: passive resistance.
But Colbert *still* managed to keep planting these really powerful, yet subtle, punches (…oooh …that Jon Stewart is *such* a sexual predator…gotta watch out for him—when *Bill* was the accused predator …). It was brilliant.
Despite the dearth of laughs, I thought Colbert was massively impressive in that interview, both as a person and as a performer.
But that’s just me. :D
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February 1st, 2008 at 4:22 pm
@ looped linear,
That’s exactly what I meant. Thanks! : )
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February 1st, 2008 at 6:41 pm
For what it’s worth, I think Stephen’s comment in the Bill-O episode, “If you’re an act, then what am I?” is one of the all-time greatest lines in meta-meta-satire. (Although, I think Stephen has the only meta-meta-satire show on television.) That line alone made the interview worth it.
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February 1st, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Okay, I just re-watched last night’s episode: did anyone else notice that Stephen seemed to slip into a Southern accent a couple times?
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:00 pm
@rebnej,
I *love* it when that happens.
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:03 pm
@Lisa:
Me, too. So adorable!
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:29 pm
@Lisa, Looped, rebnej -
Wasn’t trying to be disagreeable, and I wasn’t trying to imply that the Bill-O interview wasn’t a great segment – I was asking if Lisa watched the interview because:
1. it seemed from her original comment that she said it was a great *interview*;
2. she categorized it with interviews where the interaction between Stephen and the guest (Napolitano, Young) was strong and engaging, which certainly wasn’t the case with Bill0;
3. use of the word “potentially” had several “potential” meanings in this context, including “if such an interview ever happened” or “I might find it so if/when I see the interview” or “it could have been even though it turned out not to”.
Sorry to get hung up on semantics and I wasn’t trying to be picky – just wanted to know. Lisa, your reply made me feel as if I had insulted you somehow – certainly wasn’t intended. I have no idea which episodes you’ve watched or what you know of the history of the show. Not having seen every episode does not imply unamerican activities or anything, does it?
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Just want to chime in about how wonderful both the interviews were last night.
Southern accent? When? I totally missed it. Good thing the rerun of last night’s episode is in less than an hour.
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
@Jennie:
I get what you mean about the BillO interview – Stephen has certainly said it was a very uncomfortable interview.
That said, I don’t think BillO is entirely without a sense of humor about himself and Colbert, if for no other reason than he knows Colbert has him completely pegged. (BTW, I still think O’Reilly’s a complete . . . something I can’t write here – did you hear his latest thing about there not being any homeless veterans?! – but I just don’t think he’s entirely humorless.)
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February 1st, 2008 at 8:45 pm
@Jessica:
Listen to the way he says, “It would be funny, if it just weren’t so sad.” (And the stuff around there.)
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February 1st, 2008 at 9:23 pm
This was another great episode! I loved both guest interviews and the segment about the truck driver. Stephen and the Judge were really good together.
It looked to me like the Judge slipped up when he called Stephen Bill. Based on the way both men reacted, I didn’t get the impression that it was planned in advance.
Stephen sometimes thinks of himself as Bill O’Reilly. Priceless!
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February 2nd, 2008 at 12:46 am
I really felt like I betrayed myself too the moment when Stephen says in a lower than boring baritone voice: “What have I become?…”
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February 2nd, 2008 at 1:52 am
@zonkuya -
That was one of my favorite parts…
Bonus points if anyone can name where we’ve heard Stephen use that voice before.
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February 2nd, 2008 at 8:03 am
@Jennie:
Not sure if this is what you’re thinking of, but, personally, it reminded me of Exit 57: Trouble at the Salmon Farm (and now I have truly fan-geeked out, and I need to be stopped . . . or not).
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February 2nd, 2008 at 8:44 am
rebnej – you’re the winner! I really should have included that in the episode guide to explain the voice, no?
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February 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 am
@rebnej – Yeah, I heard all that Bill O stuff about no homeless veterans, and you should hear Keith Olbermann hand it to him. Even though Keith is pretty much the antithesis of Stephen, god I love them both. They hand it to Papa Bear in very different, but wonderful ways.
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February 2nd, 2008 at 10:33 am
@Laura:
Yah, I caught Olbermann last night: awesome!
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