As a 17 year old I was too stupid to realize it was a joke. I preferred Jon Stewart bcz Stephen Colberts show was too conservative for me.
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2026
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So many of them didn't and it was hilarious. He made it so obvious many times, at least once per episode.
Yep! Very rarely, they were too polite to address how insane Stephen's comment was.
Because most of the time, they agreed with how batshit it was!
He said in the past that the reason he didn't renew his contract with comedy central was because he would suggest something outrageous, and the next day all these republicans would be like "YEAH!!! LETS DO THAT!!! THAT MAKES A LOT OF SENSE!!!"
And no......it never did. The absurdity was the joke. The right took the joke, didn't get the joke, and ran with it as a serious idea that they liked. He said that he no longer wanted to be the guy who inspires stupidity.
Happen the same thing with Starship Troopers.
Theres like 7 movies lol. It’s on my list of “really?! There’s no way there’s that many” movies. 7 there are 7.
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He timed his contract expiration to match Letterman's. He really wanted to take over the Late Show, a move that paid off.
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Most did, some didn't. That was already a decade ago. The prism that people see the world through has changed dramatically. It was far easier to discern satire from reality back then.
Things that would have seemed completely impossible in the mid 2010s are reality now. It's the same reason that nowadays I have to check each news story to see if it's satire or not.
People are insane now. They weren't 10 years ago.
I spend the morning listen to a woman talk about herself to her friend. Every sentence was a tidal wave of how difficult and awful and demanding her life was, how nobody could understand her struggles, but then also how she was the most empathetic understanding and self-aware person in the world. How she is so happy and wishes others could be happier like her, but she'll never be happy because she can't have the things everyone else has. She has so many great amazing friends, but she can't really be who she really is around them or they won't like her. Oh, and this is all in the context of her YouTube channel she's trying to monetize.
Our world is so far gone that people's self-conceptions/identity has become hyperreal on an everyday basis.
And I'm over here like, petting my dog sipping a black coffee thinking how this lady is like every other person I have met the past few years, her little speech is basically every other person on youtube or a podcast these days. NPC who thinks they are the main character and everyone else is the NPC.
And I think 10 years ago, would anyone have socially tolerated this crap? No, they'd have avoiding this person like the plague. Now they are like, folk-heros and everyone aspires to be like them. Shit's wild. Not even Colbert could pull off the hyper absurdity that so many folks now just embody everyday.
And we wonder why the world is like this... well because the people in the world are like this and people like them for it.
A few thought he was serious. Most understood he was making fun of them. Some thought he was making fun if how liberals and lefties view the right.
I was really really shocked when Bill O'riely brought him on. That's when I thought they really don't get the joke. I don't think they ever did until he started The Late Show.
Dubya Bush brought him to the presidential dinner unironically
The WHCA invited him - and organize the entire event. Bush didn't have anything to do with it. They definitely knew who he was and that the character was satirical.
This. They knew he was a satirist, they just didn't expect him to bring weapons-grade jester's privilege.
Oh yeah, totally. I was thinking that after I posted it. They knew what they were getting but were shocked at what they got.
I think you're confused. O'Reilly knew Colbert was mocking him in particular and hated Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. My recollection is thathe occasionally interacted with them by appearing on the Daily Show or hosting either because it was good for ratings, but he never left any confusion that he hated their parody.
It was outrageously parody. Just look at the episode on coffins.
coffin flops!
I had a right leaning friend who thought it was serious. He was working on his PhD and was extremely smart. It was shocking.
People who are smart in one way are usually not smart in every way.
Min maxxing
I take all of my points from wisdom, and place them into intelligence!
Now, to challenge myself to build the world's most polluting machine.
I’ve seen students at one of the world’s most prestigious universities stop in the middle of crossing the busy road to tie their shoelaces.
I find that most people have around the same amount of smarts to spread around. Some people hyper focus it in a specific area, others spread it around. There are obviously outliers, but when I find someone who seems to be notably dense about a topic, I usually ask myself “where are they focusing their attention?”
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INT vs WIS, for the nerds.
There are two reasonable ways of interpreting The Colbert Report. One is that he was joking, and this we know is what he intended, because he made himself clear when he was off the show.
The other is that he was trolling. He was throwing things out there and he was joking, but not really. You now see this style from a lot of right wing people. Trump just did it in his correspondents dinner speech where he said he was going to run again in 2028.
It's because other people come in with their own biased perspectives and they can make some sort of reasonable interpretation that they get the wrong idea and never correct it.
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In 2010 or so my dad, who now gets his news exclusively from Newsmax, said Colbert was a communist. So, yea
They thought he was real enough to be the MC at one of Bush II’s White House Correspondents’ dinners
He was invited by the WHCA, not the White House or Republicans. They knew what they were getting.
Back then presidents had thicker skin. The job of the WHCD entertainer was to make fun of the sitting president to show what freedom of speech is all about. The job of the president was to take it and smile. He wasn't invited because they thought he supports Bush. He was invited because they thought he was funny.
I'm kind of surprised how many people in this thread don't seem aware of this. Are these gen-Z folks who weren't around for the 90s, or did people not know this back then?
I think it must be mostly people too young to remember.
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Which are not organised by the White House
The purpose of those dinners is to roast the President
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