From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
"Colbert is Dead. Long Live Colbert."
New York Times:
For nine years, Stephen Colbert has relentlessly maintained his pompous, deeply ridiculous but consistently appealing conservative blowhard character on his late-night show, “The Colbert Report”---so much so that when he puts the character to rest for good on Thursday night, he may have to resort to comicide. The Grim Reaper is his last guest.
Not to sound like an old geezer, but I remember like it was yesterday when he signed on for the first time in October of 2005 and set up his premise:
"Now I know some of you may not trust your gut...yet. But with my help you will. The truthiness is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news at you."
Truthiness---"the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true"---was chosen as Merriam-Webster's 2006
Word of the Year, and Stephen Colbert never strayed from it when he was in character as Stephen Colbert (including his now famous
Correspondents Dinner speech, where he roasted George W. Bush with a truthiness flamethrower). Here are some Colbert gems we dug up from the archives:
"President Obama is about to pardon a turkey. What did that turkey know about Benghazi?!!"
"Just because something doesn’t exist doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ban it. That's why I have long fought for ballot measures to ban cat pilots, baby curling, and man-futon marriage."
"I'm gonna miss that guy."
---Karl Rove
"Cheney was simply performing the duties of Vice President as envisioned by our Founding Fathers. At least the ones who went mad with mercury poisoning."
"There's a wonderfully cooperative relationship between management and labor right now, much like the historic partnership between oranges and a juicer."
"Should oil companies give back all those tax breaks? Yeah…as soon as the seagulls give back all that oil."
"The [Republican] debate on 'enhanced interrogation techniques' was a good start, but we can go further. Next time I say we put a suspected terrorist up on stage with the candidates and give them each 30 seconds to spill the beans. After all, you can say you're pro-torture, but actions scream louder than words!"
"These bins are for Wal-Mart employees to donate [food] to other employees. And where can Wal-Mart's low-wage workers find cheap food to donate? Wal-Mart. Anyone can afford food there…except people who work at Wal-Mart."
We made his naughty list.
"Any news organization can 'gather' news, but [Rupert] Murdoch knows how to make it a sustainable crop. You see, he plants the news in The Wall Street Journal, he fertilizes it in The New York Post, and then he harvests it on Fox News."
"A true libertarian pin-up calendar would just be one page: the bottom would be blank so the free market could decide what day it is, and the top would just be a mirror, because you are the only one that matters."
In addition to being a master of wit and comic timing, he also proved to be
a master truth teller:
[Pew Research] shows that viewers of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last.
Colbert the right-wing blowhard may be gone after tonight, but he'll always be a card-carrying Kossack in our hearts and on our server:
Hungarians (572+ / 57-)
Hungarians are dirty ghoulies who wash in peanut oil.
Heil healthcare!!!
by notstephencolbert on Wed Aug 15, 2007 at 06:36:49 PM EDT
Rest in peace, Stephen. And good luck with the
Late Show gig, Stephen.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Thursday, December 18, 2014
Note: Kim Jong Un is not being made fun of in today's C&J. Repeat: not being made fun of in today's C&J. ---Mgt.
-
23 days!!!
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Chinese New Year (of the goat):
63
Days 'til the
Ullr Fest in Breckinridge, Colorado:
23
Estimated number of Americans nationwide who will strike out on their own and become self-employed, thanks to being able to get affordable health insurance via Obamacare:
1.5 million
(Source: The Urban Institute)
Percent increase in the cost of the second-cheapest silver plan for 2015:
2%
(Source:
The Portland Press herald)
Conservative estimate of how many pieces of plastic are now floating in our oceans:
5 trillion
(Source:
The Washington Post)
Minimum number of minutes the Hanukkah candles should burn each night:
30
Approximate number of years that American chocolatiers have been making chocolate gelt:
94
(Source: The Internet)
-
Your Thursday Molly Ivins Moment:
I wish each and every one of you (even the Republicans) a very merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, joyous Kwanzaa, feliz Navidad, reflective Ramadan and whatever it is that you pagans do at this time of year. May we all have a lovely time and treat one another with special kindness.
---December 2000
-
Puppy Pic of the Day: Farewell, Norman Bridwell. My imagination will always contend that your dog is real.
-
CHEERS to today's #1 reason for mixing a tall cold Cuba Libre. The American president, Canadian prime minister, Cuban dictator and the Pope walk into a bar. Astonishingly that's not the start of a joke:
A 2013 PPP poll revealed that six percent
of Americans think Benghazi is in Cuba.
The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, American officials said Wednesday.
In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 minutes off the American coast.
Our Cuba policy has been a joke for decades too long, and it's about damn time we had a president rooted firmly enough in reality to blink. Now bring on the cigars---I hear they're tasty.
CHEERS to the air up there. Breaking wind: the rover Curiosity has detected methane emissions on Mars. Scientists say it's the strongest evidence yet to bolster their theory that Mars used to be inhabited by flatulent cows.
CHEERS to Chris Rock. I wish he wouldn’t weigh in on politics and such only when he has a new movie out (which I hear is very good). Because he's quite the level-headed observer:
"As bad as George W. Bush was, he revolutionized the presidency. He was the first president who only served the people that voted for him. He ran the country like a cable network; he only catered to his subscribers. Obama's main fault is not realizing that's kind of what people want. That whole trying-to-make-everybody-happy thing is done. People who voted for him want him to do what Bush did. And whoever's the next president will do what Bush did."
Good point. The Democratic party is a big tent, yes. But we need to quit trying to appeal to the idiots in the small tent. Because while we're over there making our case, they're over here trying to burn down our tent.
CHEERS to Springsteen's turf. Happy anniversary, New Jersey, where the official dinosaur is the Hadrosaurus Foulkii, the official shell is the knobbed whelk, and the official color is spray-on orange. You became our third state on December 18, 1787. I looked it up, and the traditional gift for years one through 226 is "bling," but the 227th year is "federal indictment of your lane-closing governor." But that might take a little while longer to deliver, so in the meantime please enjoy the gift of giving New York the finger. We'd hate to mess up your daily routine.
CHEERS to joining the coolest club in Clubland. I must say, this whole Rock and Roll Hall of Fame fad seems to have some staying power. The 30th annual inductees were announced this week, and the winners are:
Frustrating! "The" Bruce Dickinson
remains a Hall of Fame shutout.
Performer Category:
• The Paul Butterfield Blues Band
• Green Day
• Joan Jett & the Blackhearts
• Lou Reed
• Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble
• Bill Withers
Award for Musical Excellence:
• Ringo Starr
Early Influence Award Award:
• The "5" Royales
They'll make it official on April 18th during a big concert that'll be televised---from the waist up to protect our children from the evils of gyrating hips, from the neck down to protect our children from stray cuss words, and the chest area will be blurred to protect our children from nipple-revealing wardrobe malfunctions. It'll be a wonderful day of navel gazing.
-
Five years ago in C&J: December 18, 2009
JEERS to chaos in Copenhagen. Heh---you think our healthcare debate is getting nasty? Over at the climate-change summit, attendees are pointing their fingers every which way, rioting in the streets and fleeing to their respective Copencorners to pout and fume. But there is one bit of good news. While half of the attendees are screaming so much that they've doubled their output of CO2, the other half is holding their breath in protest so they're not emitting any. Result: the summit has become carbon neutral. Hooray! Everyone into your limos---we're doin' a victory lap!
-
And just one more…
Anybody got a shoe I can borrow?
CHEERS to the consistency of "Kossack Time." Yesterday's C&J poll asked, "At what speed has 2014 gone for you?" It was an encore of a question we asked in 2006 and again in 2012 and 2013. Here's the breakout for comparison:
Fast: 80%, 79%, 82%, 78%.
Normal Speed: 9%, 11%, 11%, 13%.
Slow: 8%, 7%, 5%, 6%.
Remarkable consistency. The conclusion to me seems obvious: on any given year, between five and eight percent of us spend too much watching C-SPAN.
Have a nice Thursday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
-
Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
"Research is showing us that Cheers and Jeers can so be tied to your destiny."
---Dr. Sharon Bergquist
-