Episode 4083 (06/23/2008)

“Guests of The Colbert Report stay at the luxurious ‘crashing with a friend’. This is The Colbert Report!“

Equality Time: “Tonight, there is racial progress in South Africa. I hope this means I can start buying blood diamonds again.”

• Anniversary of Stephen breaking his wrist, WristSTRONG!
• Racism and South Africa

The WØRD: Black & White

The Audacity of Nope: “Then, Barack Obama rejects public financing. Apparently, he’s not only a secret Muslim, he’s a secret hypocrite.”

• Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger
• Wag: Obama refusing public financing
• Tip: Obama refusing public financing
• Wag: California (gay marriages)
• Tip: Condoms
• Wag: High Fuel prices

Class Half Empty: “Plus, my guest Barbara Ehrenreich has a new book called This Land Is Their Land. I assume she means the Chinese.”

• Guest: Barbara Ehrenreich, Author – This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation

THE COLBERT BUMP – YOU’RE GETTING IT:

This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation

In closing: “Well, that’s it for The Report, everybody. I hope you’ve enjoyed watching me for the past half hour. Now it’s time for me to watch you [stares stonily into the camera]. Good night.”

Video highlight: WristStrong Anniversary – After Stephen’s traumatic wrist injury, he pledged that he would never again break a fall with his hands.

NOTABLE MOMENTS! — Video links and more after the fold

More Video Highlights, courtesy of Comedy Central’s Colbert Report website

• Full Episode Video
• Intro – 6/23/08 : There is racial progress in South Africa. Stephen hopes this means he can start buying blood diamonds again.
• The Word – Black and White : Stephen flip-flops on flip-flopping and gives Senator Obama a tip of his hat for proving he’s a regular politician after all.
• Tip/Wag – Barack Obama : Stephen flip-flops on flip-flopping and gives Senator Obama a tip of his hat for proving he’s a regular politician after all.
• Barbara Ehrenreich : Stephen wants you to buy Barbara Ehrenreich’s book so she gets super rich and has to swallow her words.
• Sign Off – Time for Stephen to Watch : Stephen hopes you’ve enjoyed watching him. Now he’s going to watch you.

NOTABLE MOMENTS

• As I’m sure you are all aware, this past Saturday, June 21st, was the one year anniversary of an event so shocking that it startled an innocent nation out of its complacency. Yes, one year ago, I, Stephen Colbert, fell and broke my wrist.
• The upside was, my injury led to my valiant WristSTRONG campaign. It’s mission: to use celebrities to raise awareness of wrist injuries and fight Hollywood’s sick glamorization of wrist violence.
• Yes, it has been one year since I broke my wrist. Which brings us to the obvious question. What the hell is going on right here? [Camera zooms in on Stephen's eyes and the bridge of his nose, revealing stitches and bruising ... a possible broken nose?] What the hell did I do to myself on Saturday? Got stitches up there, and it looks like I’m growin’ a little map of Norway down one side of my face.
• Well, folks, after my traumatic wrist injury, I pledged that I would never again break a fall with my hands. That, ahh … that left my face.
• Now it’s not really important exactly what happened up here. Perhaps I was trying to break the record for smashing watermelons with your head; it is important to ‘thump the melon’ to make sure it’s ripe. Most people just use their fingers.
• Now, we may never know exactly how this happened, okay? But one thing we do know: it is my responsibility to shed light on Hollywood’s glamorization of face violence. [Montage of clips from Fight Club, Rocky, Airplane!, Chinatown, Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Scanners, etc.] Technically, that last one was more than face violence, it was head violence. Shame on you, Hollywood!
• Nation, I’m going to talk to you about race. I do my part to promote race awareness by pointing to people on the street and shouting, “Black! Indian! Some sorta Asian guy!” Sometimes I even get it right.
• And while racism is still a problem, we are making progress as a nation. For instance, people now know there are certain words that are offensive when discussing race. Like the word “racist”. [Clip from ABC discussing high and low "racial sensitivity"]
• If someone admits to being prejudiced at times, they have “low racial sensitivity”. Don’t call them racist! This isn’t 1965, c’mon!
• Now there is some … inequality still out there. Luckily, someone is making a difference: South Africa. In the past, South Africa has been criticized for its race relations; I never got it, personally. You put a black kid in a white school, you’re fighting segregation; you put one white country on a black continent, and suddenly you’re the bad guy in Lethal Weapon 2.
• But South Africa has found a way to end one form of inequality, and it’s tonight’s WØRD [Black & White].
• Folks, last week, South Africa’s high court issued a landmark ruling that classifies Chinese South Africans as “black”. That bears repeating: Chinese are now black. ["I Got 99 Problems but Feng Shui Ain't One."]
• Now, in some ways, folks, this upsets me. For one, it poses the threat of a black Yo-Yo Ma. The next thing you know, white surburban kids will be listening to cello music. ["Straight Outta Carnegie"]
• South Africa issued this ruling so Chinese residents who suffered under apartheid would be eligible for the same government programs put in place to help blacks. Now, I think government handouts are wrong [Other Than to Oil Companies], but I do applaud South Africa for lumping ethnic groups together [Racial Turducken].
• I think we should do the same thing here [E Pluribus Same-um].
• Because if there still is discrimination here, some of the blame has to go to the fact that there are still so many different groups available to discriminate against. Women, blacks, Latinos, Asians, Muslims, Jews, the poor, immigrants, soccer players, men with girl names like René. It is a smorgasbord! [Dirty Swedes!]
• I mean, really, who could resist? [The Notoriously Stubborn Irish?]
• Personally, I am always suspicious of anything that has more than two categories. [Divides Supermarket Into "Cheese" & "Not Cheese"]
• For instance, you’re either with us or you’re against us. [Or You're Against Us But Have Oil]
• It is either Coke or Pepsi. You’re either gay or you fight it. [Compromise: Open An Antiques Store]
• But if we, in America, legally made all those groups black, we could dispel the shadow of discrimination forever by simply electing one black President. I speak, of course, of John McCain. As a senior citizen, he is certainly discriminated against; that would make McCain black. [George Bush's Black Friend]
• So thank you, South Africa. I have spent so many sleepless nights trying to make McCain seem like anything other than more of the same. [McCain Kept Someone Awake?] But if we follow your example, McCain can be the candidate of change. It is time for a black man to lead the free world, and John McCain is the white man for the job. And that’s The WØRD.
• Nation, I gotta tell you, I am so tired of wishy-washy weathermen. Partly cloudy? It’s sunny or it isn’t; pick a side. This is Tip of the Hat/Wag of the Finger!
• Nation, last year, Barack Obama pledged that if he were the Democratic nominee he’d ” … aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.”
• Last Thursday, Sen. Obama released this statement ["We've made the decision not to participate in the public financing system for the general election."]
• That’s a flip-flop, sir! Which is why I’m giving you a wag of my finger … for copying John McCain. Completely reversing course on core issues is Senator McCain’s thing; he did it on President’s tax cuts, courting Christian fundamentalists, immigration and ethanol. Hell, before Obama was even born, John McCain was flip-flopping on the Franco-Prussian War! Are you for Bismarck or against?
• Now I’m going to flip-flop on flip-flopping and give Senator Obama a tip of my hat, for proving he is a regular politician after all. Just listen to what he said in that exact same announcement. ["Join us in building a new kind of politics."] Senator Obama, this is my favorite kind of new politics: it’s exactly like the old kind of politics. That is change I can believe in! The kind that doesn’t happen.
• Next, a wag of my finger at California. Last week, California allowed its first gay marriages. But apparently, they didn’t get the message God sent them with that Universal Studio fire.
• Well, it’s not enough that Californians are attacking straight marriage, now they’re preying on the elderly. Just look at what I found in the THE USA Today: two “[w]omen together for 55 years among first to wed as same-sex marriages legalized“. Shame on you, California, for turning these two sweet old roommates gay!
• You probably took advantage of the gulliblity of old people and had some smooth-talking gay telemarketer tell them they won a grand prize trip, and the only way to retrieve it was to be gay.
• California, stop tricking our grandmothers into marrying each other. Or someday, little Billy will open up his birthday card to find a Melissa Etheridge CD.
• Next, a reservoir tip of my hat to condoms. I was thrilled to learn that, last week, America’s McMurdo research station in Antarctica received “… a year’s supply …” of “… 16,488 condoms ….” That number may seem a bit excessive but, due to Antarctica’s freezing temperatures, you have to wear fifty at a time.
• And there is a real need for these down there, folks. Research station manager Bill Henricksen put it delicately, saying, ” … for the most part, people who come down here know how to occupy their time ….”
• Like the old saying, “Everybody looks good after four months of darkness.” Best of all, by wearing condoms, these scientists won’t spawn baby scientists. Although I wouldn’t mind giving a baby a research grant. Maybe he could figure out what happens to the ball when it rolls behind the couch. I am dying to know if it still exists.
• Finally, a wag of my finger at high fuel prices. Not only are average Americans feeling the crunch, now high fuel prices are causing carnivals to remove gasoline-powered rides from their midways.
• Folks, a carnival without rides is no carnival at all. It saddens me that our children are going to miss out on the opportunity to ride a fifty year old Tilt-A-Whirl held together with C-clamps, twine, and, let’s say an old hot dog, while this guy’s at the controls.
• Or that special feeling you get, being told in front of your girlfriend that you’re too short to ride the bumper cars, even though you’re seventeen and maybe haven’t hit your growth spurt yet. C’mon! Bullsh!t!
• My guest has a new book about the chasm between the rich and the poor. I call it the East River. Please welcome Barbara Ehrenreich!
• Your new book is called This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation. Why shouldn’t we be a ‘Divided Nation’, ma’am? … What is the division you’re talking about?
• Ehrenreich: It’s gone much too far. Right now, the top 1%, in terms of wealth, has more wealth than the bottom 90%. Much more.
• Stephen: Put together?
• Ehrenreich: Yeah. That 1% outweighing the whole 90% –
• Stephen: Well that’s a great reason for us to be divided. Because, I mean, unless we’re separated from each other, us rich people are going to feel guilty about how much richer we are, and the poor people are gonna be mad at us for having so much cash. Don’t we need to make it further so we can’t see each other any more?
• Are you not engaging in class warfare here?
• Ehrenreich: Yeah, I’m fighting back. Right –
• Stephen: Against what? You don’t seem to be hurtin’, lady! You’ve got a nice haircut; I’m guessing you don’t sleep in a cardboard box. What are you fighting back against?
• What’s wrong with a free market system, madame? People can pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Are you saying that rich people should give poor people bootstraps?
• Ehrenreich: No, but I think that the rich people should … I mean the super rich. I actually don’t think you qualify.
• Stephen: I do, actually. I actually do qualify as super rich. Yeah.
• Ehrenreich: All right, all right, then I’m going to go after you.
• Stephen: Oh, come on! “Go after” me? See me shake, baby?
• What’s the solution, here? Do you want to tax the rich? Punish them for making money? … If you’re taxing me at a higher rate than you tax someone who makes less money, then you’re punishing me for being a master of the universe.
• Ehrenreich: We used to do that in this country: we used to have an income tax system that took 90% of the income of the very, very rich. And you know, that was under a Republican, Dwight Eisenhower –
• Stephen: Yeah, but he was pretty much a pinko … You know in World War II, when he was in command of our troops? Who was our ally? Russia. Case closed.
• The book is This Land Is Their Land; my guest is Barbara Ehrenreich. Buy this book so she becomes super rich and has to swallow her words.

Fangirl Suit Report: Black suit, light blue tie with black and silver diagonal stripes. White shirt (with tone on tone white stripes), two-button barrel cuffs. WristSTRONG bracelet.

• Episode 6040 (3/18/2010)
• Episode 6039 (3/17/2010)
• Episode 6038 (3/16/2010)
• Episode 6037 (3/15/2010)