Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Colbert Stahling for Time

Stefan Kölbehr (it's German, bitch!) is on a røll with his new show, The Kölbehr Ree-porr-tuhtuhtuh on Komedy Sentral. Last night, his guest was Lesley Stahl, correspondent for CBS News' 60 Minutes news magazine show.

But first, a tip of the beret to Monsieur Cole-burt for his nearly instantaneous victory over ABC News veteran Nightline anchor, Ted Koppel, who threw up his hands after 816,274 years of journalistic integrity and walked away from Nightline to host the new all-hooker version of Cops, which will be renamed Kopps. Koppel clearly couldn't handle the heat from a guy who knows that Kellenberg is actually pronounced Kennel-berg. Can we really have a man who makes such careless tips of the slung in the most important position in America, the anchor of the #2 fake news show in the nation? Can we trust Stevie Coalbear to grovel appropriately before the great Fareed Zakaria on tonight's show?

But back to Lesley Stahl. She rose to prominence coverfing [it's a nice typo, so I'll keep it] the emerging Watergate scandal, in which bottled water was stopped at some sort of portal (or "gate") to prevent the spread of Évian flu. All the way back in 1972, Richard Nixon was already worried about H5N1; who knew?! Oh, no, sorry, I'm getting my macts fixed up. Watergate was the one where the President of the United States obstructed justice to cover up crimes by his subordinates in which they tried to subvert the democratic process to guard against the outside possibility that the people might pick the wrong candidate. A little breaking and entering ("B&E" — not to be confused with A&E or BET the cable channels) is good for the soul of a "law and order" candidate. Leslie Stahl has won awards named for both Edward R. Murrow and Fred Friendly, two of those rare names that make "television journalism" something other than a contradiction in terms.

The sophomore outing of The Colbert Report (or Ray-pore, if you prefer) concluded with a fabulous interview with the representative from Georgia's 1st Congressional district, including Savannah and a chunk of southeastern Georgia. A friend of mine in high school was quite fond of the phrase "all over hell and half of Georgia," but Jack Kingston represents only about 15% of the land area of Georgia, and presumably exactly 1/13 of its population. Thus, at the very least, he would need to pick up about a third of Georgia plus all of hell to represent such a district. Given the way that Georgia's districts are being ungerrymandered for the 2006 elections, it doesn't look likely. Besides that, hell probably won't get Congressional representation until some time after the District of Columbia. Kingston stands for traditional family values, like cross-dressing for fraternity initiations, and he has fond memories of his parents killing various pets to eat for dinner when he was a child of privilege in Ethiopia, and he knows the value of a good Hostess City.

One little side note regarding a similarity between The Colbert Réport and The Third Path: the Réport inserts sly witticisms in the text that pops up on the screen, especially in segments like "The Wørd." Here on The Third Path, hypertext links often make subtle comments on the topic at hand.

Here are a few examples:

The Colbert Réport
Macked-Out Cribs, Golden Toilets, and Young, Taut Trophy WivesMacked-Out Cribs, Golden Toilets, and Tear Me Off a Piece of That
What were the pyramids or the Taj Mahal, after all, but rich people playing Pimp My Afterlife?I'd Watch That

The Third Path
all-hooker version of CopsReno 911
contradiction in termsRepublican Freedom Calendar
subtlePropaganda As Subtle As a Ton of Bricks
Osama bin LadenTom DeLay

Here's a suggestion for your increased enjoyment of The Third Path: even if you don't actually click on the links, you can roll over them with your mouse and look at the status text at the bottom of your browser window. Either that or just watch The Colbert Réport and pretend that I don't exist. No [sniff] it's okay. Tonight, instead of Stahling for Time, he'll be Fareeding for Newsweek.