Colbert in Iraq...and "I don't get Colbert"

“I love my Church, and I’m a Catholic who was raised by intellectuals, who were very devout. I was raised to believe that you could question the Church and still be a Catholic. What is worthy of satire is the misuse of religion for destructive or political gains. That’s totally different from the Word, the blood, the body and the Christ. His kingdom is not of this earth.”
-Colbert, link


A Sunday School teacher who may not be alive without having read Tolkein, and next week's guest editor of Newsweek, Stephen Colbert is a prophetic genius, and an important sign of our times.

He's broadcasting his show from Iraq this week..the first episode includes him obeying an order from the president to get a buzz cut... not to be missed.

"Claiming the war must be over because

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nobody's talking about it anymore, Colbert announced that it was time to 'officially declare we won the Iraq war.'"
-link

For those who don't "get" Colbert, start with his rare self-disclosure on 60 Minutes, viewable here.

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Audio interview with Colbert on Terry Gross' "Fresh Air" on NPR here and here.
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Alan helpfully comments:

Just how orthodox or devout Colbert is as a Christian is not well established -- on one hand he is a regular church-goer who teaches Sunday school on occasion, on the other hand, he is on record as saying that he is "not particularly religious" -- but I think Colbert makes it pretty clear in his most recent interview with Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he is indeed a Christian.

Just as it's naive to take Colbert's interviews with guests at face value, it's a little simplistic to see his interview approach as purely satirical. On occasion you'll see him break character when there's a particular point he really wants to explore. For example, when antitheist Sam Harris came on the show to talk about his book The End of Faith, you had Colbert gently tendering the possibility that Harris might accept the existence of a minimalist, deist type God. This was not pugnacious, shout-your-guest-down Colbert; this was a man thoughtfully seeking common ground and teasing out the boundaries of Harris's beliefs.

I think it's best to treat the interviews with Christian/anti-Christian leaders/writers as an interesting amalgam of satire and a genuine expression of his faith, however much of it he may have.
-link

I too think I have seen Colbert break character more than once recently, and the times he lets it slp are very telling.

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CP: You do “This Week in God.” Which is one of our favorite segments. You’re from a South Carolinian religious family and you are a church-goer yourself. Why did you choose to focus so heavily on religion right now?

Colbert: We used to do This Week in God only once a month, but if there was room on the show we could do it every week! There is so much religion in public life. It has become acceptable for court decisions to be based on the Gospel. There’s so much religion in public life. It’s a religious pandemic. It’s everywhere. It’s not a needle in a haystack. We throw away stories every week. I know we’re not a secular state like France which has it in their constitution, but boy I wish our founding fathers had been at little clearer in that First Amendment.
-Campus Progress

Rolling Stone:A fake news show, "The Daily Show," spawned a fake commentator, Colbert, who makes his own fake reality defending the fake reality of a real president, and has government officials on who know the joke but are still willing to be mocked by someone fake. Your shows are like mirrors within mirrors, using a cycle of fakery to get to the truth. You've tapped into a sense in society that nothing, from reality shows to Bushworld, is real anymore. Do you guys ever get confused by your hall of mirrors?

STEWART: I didn't know we were going to have to be high to do this interview.

COLBERT: I think we see it less as a hall of mirrors and more as one of those slenderizing mirrors you can buy that you see in catalogs that make you feel good about yourself before you go out the door.

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Rolling Stone:Stephen, have you met Bill O'Reilly? He says you owe him a royalty check.

COLBERT: I met him at the Time 100 Dinner. I turned around and he was right behind my chair, and he said, "Oh, it had to happen sometime." He was very nice. He said, "I like you. You know why? You're not mean-spirited like most of 'em." And I said, "That's nice, I'm glad you like it." He said, "Can I give you some advice?" And I said, "I would love it.'' He said, "Watch your guests. You have an Olbermann on, you have a Franken on, that's a pattern. Your audience may not think about it, but they have a sense of it." And I said, "But you saw how I played with Olbermann. I didn't take him seriously." And he said, "Not everybody watches your show as closely as I do." And I thought, "Take me now, Jesus." I was so thrilled.

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Rolling Stone: I don't understand why you always say, "I'm just a comedian," because from Shakespeare to Jonathan Swift, humor is the best way to get through to people.

COLBERT: Peter Cook was once asked if he thought that satire had a political effect. He said, "Absolutely. The greatest satire of the twentieth century was the Weimar cabaret, and they stopped Hitler in his tracks." It doesn't mean that what we do is worthless. It's hard to do, and people like it, and it's great. But it doesn't mean that it has an effect politically.

-link