It Couldn't Happen Here

Those of you in the States lucky enough to get Comedy Centrals Colbert Report can turn over now. In the U.K. some of us are privileged enough to get access to The Daily Show, while the Irish get nada unless they fork dosh out to Murdoch.

Here's a review, in any case, of The Colbert Report from the January 27 issue of lay-Catholic magazine Commonweal by Celia Wren. It sounds a blast, "a brilliant spoof of right-wing TV punditry"

"At the height of December's conservative-instigated ballyhoo about the word “Christmas,” for example, Colbert solemnly informed the audience that, as a “Christmas originalist,” he condemned any Yuletide customs that had evolved from their initial form in any way whatsoever. Santa Claus? A ghastly innovation, Colbert asserted. The real seasonal luminary can only be St. Nicholas. As for plastic mistletoe, forget it: the only acceptable mistletoe is the living plant, harvested by white-robed dwarves. Needless to say, Colbert also condemned those “storm troopers of diversity” who use the term “holiday,” rather than “Christmas.” “If there's one thing Jesus cared about,” he stated with deadpan intensity, “it's semantics.”

And since we're all doing Bunuel these days:

"An all-too-familiar strain of smug, insular patriotism recently came in for skewering, for example, when Colbert delivered a ridiculously bigoted survey of foreign news outlets. “If it has accent marks, can it really be news?” he demanded. To the gratification of highbrow viewers, this segment included a snippet from Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel's 1929 Un Chien Andalou, used by Colbert to disparage all things Spanish."

Disgraceful behavior.