# Stephen Colbert



Weekend open thread: Colbert v King edition

What’s on your mind this weekend, Bleeding Heartland readers?

Yesterday Stephen Colbert testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee about the need to provide more visas and better working conditions for migrant farm workers. He was in character, cracking jokes, during part of the hearing, but answered seriously when asked why he took an interest in this issue:

“I like talking about people who don’t have any power and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. But yet we still invite them to come here and at the same time ask them to leave. […] Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”

Representative Steve King was at the hearing and didn’t care for Colbert’s stunt. He suggested that Colbert didn’t really spend a day working on a farm, as he claimed to have done, and accused Colbert of disparaging American workers who “perform the dirtiest, most difficult, most dangerous (jobs) that can be thrown at them.”

Maybe King was jealous that someone advocating for immigration reform grabbed a lot of media attention. Immigration has long been one of King’s pet issues. Fox News invited King on for a segment about whether Colbert’s testimony was appropriate.

Not surprisingly, media commentators seem more interested in the controversy surrounding Colbert’s appearance than in the topic at hand: an agriculture jobs bill that would give undocumented farm workers a path to U.S. citizenship.

This is an open thread.

UPDATE: Both Governor Chet Culver and Republican candidate Terry Branstad are scheduled to announce “major endorsements” on Monday morning. Who do you think those could be? My guess is the Branstad endorser will be a business person who has supported some Democrats in the past.  

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Has it been two years already?

Daily Kos user GregMitch put up a diary today today to mark two years since Stephen Colbert’s priceless routine at the White House Correspondents Association Dinner.

He not only roasted George W. Bush, he absolutely skewered the enabling White House press corps (“We, Americans, didn’t want to know, and you had the courage not to try to find out”).

Watch part 1:

Then watch part 2, which includes my favorite parts (as well as a funny line about John McCain):

Then watch part 3:

I still can’t believe he delivered some of those lines.  

Must-see TV

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards were all on the Colbert Report on Thursday.

The whole show was hilarious, so catch the rerun on Friday if you’ve got cable. But I just had to post this You Tube of Edwards doing “The Word” segment (thanks, NCDem!):

Too funny.

On the Daily Show, Jon Stewart absolutely skewered the moderators of that ABC Clinton-Obama debate. Also well worth watching the rerun. I couldn’t find that video on the Comedy Central site yet, though.