There is no table I would've rather sat at in my life than this one. And maybe from our chance meeting we could start a friendship. Stephen and I could go to ballgames, play word association, and maybe train together in the sport of kings. And perhaps Rachel would accept my hand in marriage, and we could have long walks and talk politics, while she expertly mixed my favorite drink.
But sadly I'm probably not their types. While my life does intersect with some iconic people, I'll just have to accept that these two are beyond my grasp as I am relegated to a life of amateur hero worship.
They are two great examples of American television genius, thorough deconstructors of the events of the day, and whistleblowers of hypocrisy. They separate the signal from the noise. Each obviously does their work in very different ways, but have created two mainstays in nightly TV fare.
Maddow echoed what we knew all along about the election, that Republicans were relying on their "gut" that it would be a Romney landslide, that Karl Rove had pointed to the enthusiastic crowds, which "turned out to be a bad way to predict an election."
But Colbert said never say die, there's still a path for Romney to 270:
"He just needs to get Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and the secret state only Republicans can see... Whitesylvania."
It was a gratuitous laugh line, but he boiled down the Rachel Maddow Show as well as any ever has:
"You deconstruct the day's news like the parts of a car on a lawn...but then you reconstruct those pieces into -- a conservative dream-killing machine."
Maddow laughed and said she didn't want to kill anybody's dream. She responded in her typically wonkish way, trying really, really hard not to offend.
"There's an important role to play in disabusing people of their fantasies that do not comport with what's going on in the real world."
As for the role of Sandy in the election, Colbert pressed Maddow on what caused hurricanes, telling her the answer was "gay people." Maddow blushed and quipped back, asking if gay people were responsible for lowering barometric pressure.
The interview fell short in a couple of areas. Colbert promoted, but never discussed Maddow's book, Drift. Because the conversation was only five minutes long. Which did both of these brilliant minds, and the audience, a disservice.
I really don't believe she blushed when he made that jab about gays causing hurricanes. From where I was watching, she found the joke offensive and did her best to cover up that fact.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I found the joke offensive too. I understand being unintentionally rude is part of Colbert's clumsy & callous Republican character but he should know when to reign the act in.