what-im-watching

When comedian Stephen Colbert launched his show, The Colbert Report (2005), he introduced the word “;truthiness” to the U.S. public. Speaking in character as a bloviating right-wing pundit, Colbert explained that truthiness was thinking from the gut, ignoring facts, and holding beliefs with no basis in reality.

At the time, his main target was George W. Bush, who had repeatedly told the U.S. public during his presidency that things he felt were necessarily true.  The word also emerged in response to claims by the administration that the War in Iraq was about finding Weapons of Mass Destruction. You can watch the segment where he calls the WMD justification a flat out lie here:

It didn’t take long for “;truthiness” to enter widespread use and it was named the Word of the Year by Webster’s in 2006.  In those early days, the word held the punch of satire and it encouraged critical thinking about the ways that truth was increasingly absent from policy decisions, media coverage, and public perceptions.

But whatever the context for the word’s role in 2005, we have clearly hit a new era in political discourse where truthiness trumps truth all the time with little, if any, repercussions.  The proof is in last week’s Republican National Convention where truthiness was alarmingly on display at a rate we have never seen in U.S. history.

The worrying trend today is that even when there is abundant evidence of lying, there are no repercussions. It’s a case of lying and loving it. And it needs to be stopped. If on Election Day we no longer care about the difference between truth and truthiness, then the joke will be on us.

Read the full blog on *Huffington Post *here.

Stephen Colbert just can’t seem to stop causing trouble. First, he stood not 20 feet from President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and tore down the unpopular president with a mock-laudatory speech that went viral overnight. Then, he ceased merely reporting on the ripples in the pond and started jumping in to make his own ripples when he tried to run for president in South Carolina in 2008, sponsored by Doritos, and later testified before Congress on immigration (2010). Shortly after Glenn Beck drew a modest crowd to the National Mall, he and Jon Stewart drew a much bigger crowd to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in advance of the 2010 mid-term elections. More recently, he took the unprecedented step of founding his own Political Action Committee (2011), and then undertook a nearly successful effort to use some of the $1.3 million it raised tosponsor the Republican primary in South Carolina in 2012.

Along the way, as if that weren’t enough, he has coaxed fans to alter Wikipedia entries, tweet incessant non-facts about Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, and vote for Colbert to host the Swedish Twitter site. Each of these “;stunts” has led to media criticism that he has pushed his satire too far, and into places where it doesn’t belong.

Again and again, Colbert has been called out for not staying within the bounds of his role as a comedian and entertainer. But now, it seems, he’s really overstepped. He’s become the subject of study at our nation’s universities with books and articles and classes dedicated to him. This guy just can’t be stopped!  Read more here.

Stephen Colbert just can’t seem to stop causing trouble. First, he stood not 20 feet from President Bush at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner and tore down the unpopular president with a mock-laudatory speech that went viral overnight. Then, he ceased merely reporting on the ripples in the pond and started jumping in to make his own ripples when he tried to run for president in South Carolina in 2008, sponsored by Doritos, and later testified before Congress on immigration (2010). Shortly after Glenn Beck drew a modest crowd to the National Mall, he and Jon Stewart drew a much bigger crowd to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in advance of the 2010 mid-term elections. More recently, he took the unprecedented step of founding his own Political Action Committee (2011), and then undertook a nearly successful effort to use some of the $1.3 million it raised tosponsor the Republican primary in South Carolina in 2012.

Along the way, as if that weren’t enough, he has coaxed fans to alter Wikipedia entries, tweet incessant non-facts about Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, and vote for Colbert to host the Swedish Twitter site. Each of these “;stunts” has led to media criticism that he has pushed his satire too far, and into places where it doesn’t belong.

Again and again, Colbert has been called out for not staying within the bounds of his role as a comedian and entertainer. But now, it seems, he’s really overstepped. He’s become the subject of study at our nation’s universities with books and articles and classes dedicated to him. This guy just can’t be stopped!  Read more here.

Stephen Colbert has called us losers. He got us (and 999 other fan groups based at universities) to buy his Super Fun Pack, filled it with what seemed like a series of gag items, and then asked us all to solve an extremely complex treasure hunt. If we solved it, we would get him to visit our school. So, even though we weren’t exclusively interested in the treasure hunt part of the game, of course we wanted first prize. But we didn’t get it. So, instead we are gunning for second prize.

Read more about the story here.

Stephen Colbert has called us losers. He got us (and 999 other fan groups based at universities) to buy his Super Fun Pack, filled it with what seemed like a series of gag items, and then asked us all to solve an extremely complex treasure hunt. If we solved it, we would get him to visit our school. So, even though we weren’t exclusively interested in the treasure hunt part of the game, of course we wanted first prize. But we didn’t get it. So, instead we are gunning for second prize.

Read more about the story here.

Colbert News Hub interviewed me on my latest book, Colbert’s America. Read the full interview here.

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Colbert News Hub interviewed me on my latest book, Colbert’s America. Read the full interview here.

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“Nancy Pelosi Succumbs to the Power of Colbert” appeared in the Huffington Post, February 24, 2012.'

“Nancy Pelosi Succumbs to the Power of Colbert” appeared in the Huffington Post, February 24, 2012.'

“Where’s the Outrage? It Takes Comedians to Stand Up to Newt’s Hypocrisy” appeared in the Huffington Post, January 27, 2012."