Colbert on Morning Joe: endorses (in all seriousness) Ron Paul

[kylejack]

I thought he was going to turn it into a joke, but he didn't. He said a similar thing before about Bush, something like,

"This is a guy who believes the same thing on Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened on Tuesday."

 

[unknown]

He seemed serious to me.

 

[affa]

The total amount of thought that went into that joke was probably "Ron Paul is a goofy little guy who likes gold."

absolutely incorrect. Colbert -definitely- knew the truth behind his joke. Rev9's interpretation is spot on.

Colbert skewered the media, and embraced Ron Paul in that joke... but it's hidden deep. That is extremely high level memetics -- an idea is a virus, and one of the best ways to spread an idea is to create a wrapper for it so that it gets past the initial filters/defenses of opponents to that idea (like a virus does).

That the joke was so obscure only added to it - it created a cognitive dissonance in almost every listener. This opens up our minds to new thoughts. The followup laughter was mostly faked, as people that didn't get the joke (not having the proper knowledge of myth and fables) struggled to understand it. But even for them, turning 'hay into gold' is as clear a concept as any.

Colbert knew exactly what that joke meant. Beautiful.

 

[affa]

the guy to the very left has the weirdest look on his face after Colbert supports Ron Paul. He's completely flummoxed.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

As it stood, it was, at best, an arcane inside joke.

At Thanksgiving dinner, there were four of us at the large table who were "scientists" or engineers. One guy was talking about temperature at a job site in Alaska, and said they were using Kelvin instead of Fahrenheit. I said "the thing I really hate about Kelvin is that when it reaches zero, I can never start my car."

 

[Dianne]

Let's hope Colbert endorses him then ) .

 

[Mini-Me]

He pretends to be conservative it is part of his act. Colbert the actual person is progressive.

This is my understanding as well. It's hard to get a precise read on the real Colbert, since he's almost always in character (playing a Bill O'Reilly type), but I'd place his views around the progressive ballpark too. I'm not sure if he's squarely in that camp, or if he's a civil libertarian with progressive leanings, or what. This isn't the first time he has shown legitimate respect for Ron, though...his whole schtick is making fun of neocon pundits, so he can easily see how much Ron differs from the pack. I have trouble truly warming up to him, since the hard exterior of his character only lets a little light shine through, but there's no question he's a brilliant satirist.

 

[Jamesiv1]

Exactly. When he comes out of character and makes a statement like that about a supposed "fringe" candidate, you would think there would be a single followup question. Instead, they quickly move on lest they lose their jobs.

Would have been interesting if they had spent a few minutes talking about why Colbert's comment was so clever. Rumplestiltskin, an impish little devil who knows how to turn something worthless (straw) into something precious (gold) and will do it for you, too - in exchange for your first-born child.

 

[DerailingDaTrain]

For those who don't think that Colbert is being serious and that he is actually out of character you need to search "Colbert out of character" on YouTube and watch an interview he did on The View about his mother and one on MSNBC about his show where he is completely out of character. During both interviews his tone of voice and demeanor is the same as when he said he would vote for Ron and he even repeated to the puppets around him that he was serious and gave them a reason on why. I really don't think it is just what he said though (who supports a president without liking their policies? just because the guy is consistent doesn't mean he says things I like). So in the end I feel that Colbert was for a very brief time out of character and told these idiots how he really feels (He's friends with Jon Stewart who although he is what you guys would call progressive is pissed at Obama for lying). If you've ever seen either of their shows you would know that they make jokes about the type of policies Gingrich, Santorum, and Romney have and constantly rip them on it.

PS One of my favorite recurring jokes on The Colbert Report is when he wants to bring Karl Rove on for an interview and Karl Rove refused so he instead uses the closest thing to him "a ham loaf wearing glasses" and refers to him as Ham Rove. lol

 

[Ray]

He broke character on show once, when he was saying goodbye to Steve Jobs