If you’re not paying attention to what Stephen Colbert is up to these days, you should fix that. You may recall that he formed a SuperPAC called “Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow” a little while back. The PAC was also known as “Colbert SuperPAC” – however, Colbert recently transferred control of ABTT to Jon Stewart so that he could form an exploratory committee for president in South Carolina, and consequently the group is now known as the “Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert SuperPAC.” As a result of all of this, there are three things you should do.
First, watch the SuperPAC’s anti-Romney ad, which is running in South Carolina.
Next, watch Colbert being interviewed this morning on ABC’s This Week.
Finally, read the short NY Times piece about these developments, and the long NY Times piece that gives some context and backstory to all of this.
Bonus video: the piece on the SuperPAC’s “issue ad,” featuring Buddy Roemer and Colbert riding a unicorn.
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What to make of all this? First, it’s fascinating to watch “serious” journalists like Stephanopoulos try to figure out how to handle Colbert. Second, I think Colbert is doing a real service by taking the absurdities of campaign finance laws and Citizens United to their logical conclusion. It’s hard to say what, if any, effect it all will have, but if it helps people start to question whether things like “corporations are people” and “money equals speech” really make sense, that’s a big achievement that nobody else seems to have yet managed. Third, it’s really funny, and everyone can use a good laugh.
bigmike says
In keeping with the issues raised by the Colbert actions in South Carolina, I just wanted to let everyone know that “Citizens United To End Political Bribery” (an Occupy Boston working group) is hosting a huge series of events this coming weekend to mark the two-year anniversary of the infamous Citizens United case (and to address the more general question of how to get financial influence out of politics). Here’s a flyer:
Bob Neer says
Gosh did he mishandle that moment in the sun.
As to unicorns, WikiNarnia has the following excellent background information:
Thus, first, “To Narnia!” was a non-sequitur: Colbert was evidently already in Narnia when he filmed the ad, given sentence one. Second, he appears to be getting ahead of himself: not only is he not a king, his need is not great: he hasn’t even decided if he will run.
For the record, Colbert is polling ahead of Huntsman. Memo to the former Obama diplomat: third place in NH was not a ticket to ride, it was a ticket to a graceful withdrawal announcement. …
And, lo and behold, he has gotten the message! He must be a BMGer!
David says
to C.S. Lewis, the claim that unicorns “dwell exclusively in Narnia” is the height of hubris.
Now, admittedly, Colbert’s reference to Narnia does suggest that he was thinking in Narnian terms. But since I think it highly unlikely that as learned a fellow as Colbert would commit a gaffe of the sort you suggest, it seems perfectly clear that Colbert was riding a traditional mythical unicorn, and selected Narnia as a unicorn-affiliated destination that would be recognizable to viewers of the SuperPAC ad. This also eliminates the king problem that you noted.
I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.
David says
that Colbert’s three children render the “could only be captured by a virgin” aspect of the traditional mythical unicorn problematic. Perhaps that aspect of the folklore is not entirely reliable.
Christopher says
Was there supposed to be a link with your comment about the event? Your comment ends with “Here’s the flyer:” then nothing.
SomervilleTom says
I see a nice big occupyboston.org poster at the end of his link.
Sounds like another browser (IE) issue to me.