Stephen Colbert for President 2008!

No, unfortunately we’re not any closer to the presidency at the moment.

But, on January 7th, we will start seeing new episodes of The Colbert Report as well as The Daily Show beforehand!

And yesterday, Stephen was awarded the Associated Press’ Celebrity of the Year honor for 2007. This is awarded to the celebrity who is supposed to have had the biggest impact on popular culture during that year.

Congrats on the honor, Stephen. And we can’t wait to see you again on January 7th!

On Telegraph.co.uk, the newspaper’s US editor Toby Harnden has posted a terrific entry discussing Mark Twain as a presidential candidate. Y’all ought to check it out, ’specially as he had the decency to link to our fine blog. Harnden writes:

Have written a piece for the paper about Mark Twain, Mark Twain lookalikes and the 2008 election. Twain impersonator Jim Wadell was kind enough to give me a copy of Twain’s manifesto for president, entitled “Mark Twain as a Candidate” and published in the “Frankford Chronicle on January 1st 1879.

Twain was essentially doing what Stephen Colbert tried this month before falling foul of Democrats in South Carolina – mounting a presidential bid in character as a ludicrous political figure as a way of highlighting the emptiness of much that goes on in US politics. Patt Morrison of the LA Times makes the comparison in a very good oped about “joke” candidacies here.

World-wide, baby. Already the Colbert Nation is spreading its message across the Atlantic. In the comments to that blog, I was challenged to put forth Colbert’s Manifesto. Here is my humble effort.

MANIFESTO COLBERTO

Stephen Colbert’s manifesto, though I cannot claim to speak it with any authority or permission, is thus:
America is no longer just a Nation Indivisible - It is a Nation Undeniable. Why can it not be denied? Because only the truth can be denied; but America no longer deals in such trivialities as the truth. We have become a Nation of Truthiness. We have become a Nation that transcends reality in favor of Wikiality. We are a Nation of triumphant eagles, soaring high above the brutish bears stuck to the terra firma of outdated ideals. We are no longer just A Nation. We are THE Nation. The Colbert Nation. United We Stand. Tread On Us Do Not. The Buck Stopped Here Already.

For clarification, I recommend conducting research at www.stephencolbert08.com

I NEED YOU, NATION, TO CONSTRUCTIVELY CRITICIZE THIS MANIFESTO.

Now tell us what you think. The winning suggestion, as decided by a panel of four webmasterful judges, wins a hand-inked scroll with the manifesto done in the calligraphic style of your choice. No fibbin’!

Howdy. Mean Rachel here, reminding you that women are voters too (at least, when we’re not popping out babies and gold digging). I may be from Texas and I may be a woman but let me ask you this: How angry would you be if every vote you’d ever cast in your five year voting history held roughly the same weight as driving through McDonald’s and ordering a McRib (pun not intended but it did turn out quite nicely).

The rest of the union may be on strike, but I’m not and I see this as a key moment in history to take down David Letterman’s nightly Top Ten list. So here we go, without further adieuness:

The Top Ten Reasons South Carolina Doesn’t Deserve to Even Have the Same Initials as Stephen Colbert

10. There’s a North Carolina. Isn’t one Carolina enough?

9. It was the first state to secede from the Union and form the Confederacy. What a fuck-up that was.

8. SC (the State, not our Demigod) has a climate that is described as “humid subtropical.” Humid. Subtropical. In other words, your hair will never look good, John.

7. Speaking of which, we’ll add “Expensive haircuts” to the list. Four hundred dollars? It sure as hell better come with a happy ending or three scoops of Americone Dream.

6. South Carolina has no major professional team in the MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL. Now, I may be a chick but getting smashed and staring at athletic men is what we do here in Texas and I can’t imagine life without that.

5. South Cackalacky was home of the first public museum. That pretty much has ruined every school field trip and vacation I’ve ever been on, thanks.

4. Up until 2006, they required mixed bevvies to be made with minibottles instead of bartenders pouring from a handle of liquor. Apparently an average minibottle has 30% more volume than an average free-pour, so this resulted in a lot of drunk people. Wait, maybe this shouldn’t be on the list after all.

3. Andy Dick is from South Carolina. ‘Nuff said.

2. The South Carolina Democratic Party is a bunch of stick-in-the-mud drones.

And the number one reason South Carolina Doesn’t Deserve to Even Have the Same Initials as Stephen Colbert is…

::DRUMROLL::

1. I personally believe that US Americans aren’t ready for the, like, truthiness. Such as the Iraq. Truthineess. South Africans.

There has been muy muy speculation recently that South Carolina Democrats’ decision to keep Colbert off the Democratic ballot was somewhat influenced by the demands of certain high-profile Barack Obama supporters. The LA Times lays the story out with a bit more context than one is used to reading in campaign coverage, causing us to overlook the paper’s status as a liberal fishwrap from a should-be-annexed state of total disregard for the American way. Anyway:

Well, during the last day or so behind the scenes, the Clinton folks, who play hardball, have been shopping around to some writers (not this one) a story idea that a couple of prominent Obama supporters had lobbied the South Carolina Democratic Party’s executive council last week to keep Stephen Colbert off the state’s primary ballot, which they succeeded in doing.

When you think about it, that’s probably a good idea. Colbert, a funny fellow who plays a political talk show host on his Comedy Central show, got Doritos to sponsor his candidacy and claimed to be showing the fundamental hypocrisy of the political system by trying to run in both parties’ primaries.

He’s good for a laugh, and normally serious Tim Russert even had him on the normally respectable “Meet the Press,” for a faux serious candidate interview. The “truthiness,” as usual these days, is that Colbert’s “campaign” provided priceless free publicity for his TV program and new book.

And here we are, Nation, with no one to blame but the political process itself. Did Obama’s people actually push to keep Stephen off the ballot? Did Hillary’s people spin harmless political canvassing into a desperate plot to destabilize Obama’s support among one of his target demographics: The Colbert Nation (provided Stephen is not on the ballot and orders us not to include him as a write-in for staggeringly noble purposes)? Is it wrong to insert elaborate parentheticals into absurd hypotheticals in any context? These are questions for the ages, my friends. By which I mean I have no earthly idea.

All I know is I’m going to continue to go through a carton of Americone Dream a day until the truthiness is revealed and this crisis is over. By which I mean, I hope I wake up soon.

Nation, I have finally solved the riddle of how a benevolent and white God could possibly allow the candidacy of Stephen Colbert, would-be favorite son of South Carolina (and potentially favored god-child of, naturally, God), to be so viciously pre-empted by things as simple as $35,000 and the contempt of Democrats.

The answer, so blindingly simple I can’t believe it’s escaped me for so long, is this: Stephen Colbert’s candidacy has NOT ended. No, in fact, it continues. You, however, are either having a nightmare or in a coma having a nightmare, or possibly having a nightmare about being in a coma and having a nightmare in which your life continues on as normal since you went to sleep/became comatized sometime last week. Your mind is now constructing a hellish dystopic future that would make H.R. Giger blush. Stephen Colbert’s apparent lack of a candidacy is merely the first fanciful step of the imagination down a path that will eventually take us somewhere between Mad Max and Bladerunner, maybe with some Postman thrown into the grinder.

By which I mean, if you own a tape or DVD of Kevin Costner’s The Postman … throw it into a grinder. Any will do. Coffee grinder, herb grinder … I believe a garbage disposal qualifies as a grinding device. Use a garbage growler just to be safe. Growler sounds way more like grinder than ‘disposal’ does anyway.

The brave folk over at OC Weekly have hijacked our truthiness for their own purposes. But they are noble purposes.

Though this is not necessarily campaign-related, its news significance is staggering enough, and the truthiness emphasized enough, to warrant a reference.

We need something to cheer us up after the South Carolina Snub.

 

 

Truthiness About Carona Revealed!

Posted by Gustavo Arellano in Carona Watch 2007, Main, Naranja News

November 2, 2007 11:36 AM

Permalink | Comments (3)

Turns out our Scott Moxley had everything wrong about Sheriff Carona, according to the DC-based news source Prime Legitimate News. The pictures between Carona and Las Vegas mobster Rick Rizzolo? Carona “went undercover as a corrupt cop” in “an undercover police uniform pretending to party, accept large cash contributions, even going so far as to sample strippers in Rizzolo’s presence to make the criminals believe that he would be the kind of man who might throw his Christian values out the door in exchange for sex and cash.” Carona allowing a felon to film inside off-limits Homeland Security facilities? According to PLN, “The whole anti-terror exercise was a FAKE! Carona organized the entire phony exercise so that the Saudis would THINK they knew how America does anti-terror, but they really had no clue at all.”

“By reporting the story,” PLN concludes, “the OC Weekly blew Carona’s cover just like Joe Wilson blew his wife’s cover as a CIA agent when he started criticizing the War On Terror.” Read more of PLN’s shocking truthiness here.

 

The time is now, Nation. Everything is in place. Stephen Colbert has announced his nomination. His image and name already grace countless signs, billboards and bumper-stickers (inaccurate though some have now become). His delicious ice cream, AmeriCone Dream, allows us not just to hear and watch but even taste the truthiness.

Stephen Colbert for President: Taste the Truthiness!

Stephen Colbert is donating his proceeds from the sale of AMERICONE DREAM to charity through The Stephen Colbert AmeriCone Dream Fund. The Fund will support charities of concern to Stephen such as food and medical assistance for disadvantaged children, helping veterans and their familes, and environmental causes. Said Colbert, “I will save the world.”

Long story short, the pawns are assembled. The Nation is ready. The world is in need. And it’s time to use that readiness.

We have several goals:

1) Pick a running mate. Suggestions, anyone?

2) Organize local grassroots support. Volunteers, anyone?

3) Work together to form the sturdiest, most ostentatious and impressive show of online support any candidate or political process in this nation or world has ever SEEN!

Colbert is running as a “favorite son” candidate. Ignoring the sexism inherent in the term, the definition includes the following:

In U.S. politics, nominating favorite sons was also used as a technique to send uncommitted delegations to a national convention of the Democratic or Republican Party. A popular or well-known governor or senator would be nominated, but was not a serious candidate. At some point during the convention, the favorite son would withdraw, freeing his delegates to support another candidate. The technique allowed senior leaders from the state to negotiate with candidates for preferential treatment.

Nation, we cannot allow such tomfoolery to occur. Just because some persnickety tradition states that favorite … child candidates give up his or her delegates. And who’s to say those delegates even have to go? I say South Carolinians should stick to Colbert like white on rice, no matter what he says. It’s the American thing to do. After all, our government is already based on truthiness - why not make it official?

Talk about a president with balls - the balls to take on a billionaire balloonist!

Rumor has it that Stephen Colbert, Thruthiness-Advocate General and Raconteur-Savant Extraordinaire, recently took on Richard Branson of Virgin fame in a no-holds-barred hydraulic exchange of savagery. After allegedly failing to plug Branson’s new low-cost airline, a newspaper said that a website said that the eccentric tycoon emptied his water glass on Colbert.

“Steven [sic] was DRENCHED,” the unnamed snitch dished to New York media Web site FishbowlNY. “He took a beat, then signaled for his own ammunition for about 20 seconds until Alison (Silverman) ran and gave him her bottle of water, and Stephen retaliated.”

We need a president who is prepared to fight fire with fire, where appropriate; more imporantly, we need a president who knows when you need to fight water with water.

Most importantly, Colbert’s ability to resist the dissociative power of water (one of nature’s most powerful solvents) demonstrates a hiterto-undiscussed reason to vote for, nay, DEMAND Stephen Colbert for President in 2008:

Stephen Colbert is not a witch.

If he were a witch, then upon contact with water Colbert would have undergone aggressive dessication, most likely accompanied by a raspy whisper along the lines of, “What a world,” or “Tell Steagle Colbeagle I love him provided he never turns gay.”

Vote Stephen Colbert in 2008: Not Directly Supporting the Occult.