You might very well think that…
Stephen Colbert’s speech at the College of Charleston last week, just days before the South Carolina Republican primary.
For the record, “Herman Cain” received 6,324 votes or 1.1% of the total number cast, a figure well ahead of all the other non-candidates still on the ballot; in fact, almost double that of Perry, Huntsman, Bachmann and Johnston, combined.
From the definitely not co-ordinating with Stephen Colbert Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow SuperPAC, a negative ad attacking the negative ads of the Republican frontrunners… then vows donations will be used to “destroy both these guys and their SuperPACs with a merciless ad torn so fierce they’ll wish they’d never been incorporated… an orgy of pure distortion leaving nothing behind – but the clean campaign we all deserve.”
More fun with SuperPacs from the team of Stephen Colbert and his friend/business partner Jon Stewart (with whom he’s definitely not co-ordinating!).
Because he’s not on the ballot in South Carolina and that state’s GOP doesn’t allow write-ins, the latest TV ad from the Americans for a Better America Tomorrow, Tomorrow SuperPac, Republican primary voters are encouraged to express their support for Stephen Colbert by casting a stealth vote for ex-candidate Herman Cain (who dropped out of the race several weeks ago, but remains on the ballot).
It’s great fun watching Colbert slip a turd into the box lunch of the Republican primary contest. Obviously he won’t “win” the SC primary, but I’m pretty sure he’s got another Peabody Award in the bag.
Stephen Colbert answers the question, “What will you do with all that unrestricted SuperPAC money?” with the launch of a TV commercial urging voters in Iowa to cast their ballots in the upcoming Ames Straw Poll for write-in candidate “Rick Parry” (not to be confused with Texas Governor Rick Perry, with an E… for Evil).
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y76RRmxk1K8%5DShould be interesting to see how many of the Colbert Nation living in the “Des Moines metroplex” may be willing to show up at the amiable hoax that is the straw poll, take their “free” ticket (the candidates pay $30 each for them, but give them away for nothing) and vote for the non-existent Rick Parry.
John Lithgow on The Colbert Report the other night, delivering a dramatic rendition of an unintentionally hilarious press release issued by the embattled Gringrich campaign.
Afterwards, Colbert added, “I am sure that won back all of Newt’s supporters that haven’t just watched a Dexter marathon.”
Thank goodness there are a few sentinels on television (albeit comedians producing what the rest of the corporate media dismissively calls “fake news”) like Stephen Colbert willing to expose the absolute lunacy of U.S. political campaign finance laws to the merciless ridicule they so richly deserve. Today, Colbert appeared at the FEC to request a “media exemption” for his putative SuperPAC:
For those unfamiliar with the background, MEDIAite provides a brief synopsis:
Here’s the story so far. First, Colbert was told he the PAC ran up against corporate “in-kind donation” rules by discussing it on his Viacom-owned show. Fortunately his “personal lawyer” (former FEC Chairman Trevor Potter) helped show him a loophole where all he needed to do was change it to a SuperPAC by writing the word “Super” on the cover letter. Then, this week, he was told by Viacom lawyers that he could no longer legally speak about his SuperPAC on air. Potter came to the rescue again by telling him about the “media exemption” that the many PAC-holders on Fox News have that claims they are just “reporting the news.” So, once Colbert gets the exemption, he should be able to talk about and support as many candidates and issues as he wants.
In a somewhat less fucked-upped world, another arm of Viacom (i.e., CBS News) would presumably be doing the heavy lifting here…
Newsy Update:
It’s always nice to see the President of the United States engaged in an event where the threat of bombing just refers to the possibility there may be some awkward moments of silence after having inadvertently hit the wrong comic note…
Anyway, it was another fairly deft performance at this year’s WHCA Dinner (aka the “nerd prom”) by Obama and his able team of writers.
While not nearly as brilliantly trenchant as it could have been – Stephen Colbert having set the bar almost impossibly high in that regard years ago when ironically fawning over Bush and mercilessly skewering the press with his withering sarcasm – Seth Myers competently delivered a pretty funny routine with some good lines.
Hats off, by the way, to the C-SPAN crew for cutting away from the stage and continually training their camera on Donald Trump – who was, understandably, the butt of a great many jokes at the event. Those repeated profile shots of him with a resolutely grim demeanour and the “fox on his head” were quite amusing counterpoints to the punchlines.
Sure to be a classic in the annals of political dissembling.
Funny as this is, it’s also disturbing in the sense that Senator Kyl may actually have believed the lie fed to him by his staff because this is the kind of patently false crap ceaselessly propagated by conservative media, then amplified and further distorted as it circulates within the right-wing echo-chamber like a demented game of ‘telephone’…
I think it fair to say that most liberals subscribe to the notion best expressed by Daniel Patrick Moynihan years ago that “While you are entitled to your own opinion, you are not entitled to your own facts.” The right-wing (aka “conservatives”) however, appear to dispute this, as witnessed by their total disregard for facts of any kind – to them, a preponderance of scientific evidence with respect to any number of issues count for little when stacked up against their ideological assumptions or personal, often kooky, faith-based beliefs.
Unlike liberals who foolishly “believe that solutions emerge from judicious study of discernible reality,” as Karl Rove is reputed to have said about “the way the world really works” when talking to New York Times Magazine reporter Ron Suskind back in 2004… “we [that is to say “conservatives”] create our own reality.”
And indeed they do. Turns out, however, that it’s 87% bullshit.
Maybe we should have adopted that as the slogan for our national team’s objective, rather than “Dominate the Podium”…
Anyway, trust the astute marketing mind of Stephen Colbert to come up with a unique way to not only both mock and celebrate the Olympics at the same time, but to successfully exploit the event: first with his sponsorship of the USA speed-skating team (including a role as an “assistant sports psychologist”); then getting made an NBC sports correspondent; and now, an official poster co-created with renowned Obama propagandist Shepard Fairey.
Too bad most everything else about the games (aside from the competition itself, of course) sucks fake snow and ice.
Speaking of which, Rex Murphy’s column the other day from his new roost at the National Post neatly sums up the patronizing “flood of tosh” we can expect to be hearing from the American media about our huge (but amazingly underpopulated) country over the next few weeks.
Lots of great stuff in this week’s show, from a sick twist on the Mac v. PC advertising war featuring a couple of cute, but foul-mouthed kids (Warning: NSFW), what happens when you insert an Alka-Selzer tablet into a water droplet in space, to the insufferable Late Night media debacle featuring incredibly rich comedians pretending to bite the corporate hands that engorge them.
Or you can skip all that and just fast-forward 2 minutes in and enjoy Stephen Colbert mercilessly dismantling the new pitch from Domino’s Pizza…
Red Tory v.3.0.3 