I'm not sure, but it was a brilliant decision! It was comedy enough to get people to tune in, yet he manages, while in character, to get his point across: to argue himself into corners where even his rabid right-wing persona has to admit that granting immigrant workers visas as a way to earn citizenship is a good idea.
Oh, please. When you go to see a stage magician perform, do you believe he really does saw the lady in half? Of course not: even if you don't know the exact method, you know it's a bit of trickery, an act meant to amuse and entertain.
I'm not sure what part of what I said this is addressed to.
In Colbert's case, even the method itself is openly displayed. It's the straw man in classic form, the fake opponent you set up for the express purpose of knocking it down. Colbert out-argues himself in a mock argument, and you hail it as a feat of wondrous magic.
"hail it as a feat of wondrous magic"? What?
Oh wait, I get it, you're impersonating the Stephen Colbert character: creating a strawman, one who hails Stephen Colbert as a wondrous magician, to argue against, to show how foolish that makes the arguer seem. You must be a big Colbert fan obviously, careful student of the technique. Brilliant (though could stand a few more jokes)!
The merits of your amateur Colbert impersonation notwithstanding, my point was that by deciding to stay in character, Colbert drew extra attention to his address; and while entertaining, made some good points, some ironically, some explicitly, in favor of better treatment of migrant workers. Not a bad five-and-a-half minutes work.
It's not, though. It's an age-old rhetorical trick, fine enough when employed to amuse and entertain, but hardly the stuff of serious political debate.
I find there are several ways to make a point, and thus considerable overlap. Some people are funny, some deadly serious, most some combination. Whether someone argues his side by amusing and entertaining, by grand speechmaking, by subtle innuendo, by satire and caricature, by rhetoric, by logic, by debate, by cartoon, by chattaqua, by fireside chat, by op-ed piece, by powerpoint slides and pie graphs, doesn't really matter to me, so long as the point gets made effectively.
I thought there were some drawbacks with Colbert's "in character" presentation (he had to step out of character at the end, for example, to respond to a question about his motive for involving himself in the migrant worker cause and agreeing to speak before congress), but on the whole, though I had my doubts beforehand, I thought it was very effective. Not "magical", as your Colbert persona has exaggerated. Just a nice job by a comedian of drawing attention to a cause and making a few good points in its favor.
You know what would be real magic? Colbert having a serious discussion with a serious opponent, and changing that person's mind about immigration reform. But that's not what Colbert does, really: His schtick is cracking jokes to the choir. Which apparently now includes the House of Representatives.
Well -- always assuming you're not in character here and mean this as a serious complaint -- he is a comedian, after all. Shtick's his stock and trade. I'm a little lukewarm on some of it; lost a lot of its lustre when W Bush stepped down, imo. But a lot of the jokes today -- how his Irish greatgrandfather hadn't come to America just to see it overrun by immigrants! -- had some teeth. And I admit I enjoyed seeing Arturo Rodriguez, head of the UFW seated beside him, laughing, show his.
I'm sorry, I'm still laughing from your vehement belief that Colbert was successful in publicizing an issue and you didn't even know that there was a relevant bill in the discussion. Guess you might have to reevaluate that "success" now, huh?
Yeah sure, you knew it was HR 2414 all along, the AgJobs Bill, right...why, you practically said so....
