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When A Fake Candidate Runs For President, The Media Wins
Stephen Colbert Has Made This Election Fun Again

Sometimes I just have to say, ???what the fuck???? and the royal we doesn???t work as well. These are my thoughts???raronauer

About two minutes after John Kerry lost in 2004, Democrats and Republicans began plotting for 2008.

At this time last year, pundits could criticize politicians for starting their campaigns too early. But now, 13 months away from the general election, there???s no way to complain about fatigue. Now is the time candidates should be making stump speeches; it???s just too bad we???ve been hearing them for the past year.

So at this point, no one???s really interested in reading about demographic breakdowns of primary states. That is until Stephen Colbert entered the picture.

For Colbert, running for President is a cheap way to promote his new book. But for the past two weeks, his campaign has been taken strangely seriously. Last weekend he was on Tim Russert, and the interview seemed taken out of a very unfunny episode of the Ali G Show.

But compared with Hillary Clinton???s laugh, Colbert was about as an entertaining, as well, an entertainer.

Last week, Joshua Green over at Atlantic did a demographic cross-sectioning of South Carolina to hedge Colbert???s chances there. The investigation might be ridiculous, but it???s more interesting than reading the same piece on Ron Paul.

Part of me is tired of the whole fake news trend. I come across people all the time who proudly claim The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are their principle news sources. Not that ???Your Moment of Zen??? isn???t funny, but what???s wrong with getting your news from the Times and supporting a real candidate for President?

But another part of me thinks that just as Stewart and Colbert have made current events more accessible, so too has Colbert???s candidacy has made the 2008 election interesting again.

And if he moves a few books while getting people excited about 2008, so be it.

Oct 23, 2007 · Link · 1 Reponse

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Comments (1)

No. 1
Rolland says:

What make the author think that the Times is any more authoritative as a news source, especially where presidential candidates are involved? One should absolutely not make up their mind on what candidate to support based on the Times, Post, or any single media outlet, and certainly not from TV (beyond watching unedited speeches on CSPAN perhaps). Decide what issues are important for you (not what MSM tells you are important), visit the various campaign websites for each candidate to see what stance you can pin them down on with respect to the issues important to you, and then check their voting records to see if is consistent with their rhetoric. Only then are you well enough armed to discern spin from reality from MSM (and see that most of it is simply more of the former).

Posted: Oct 23, 2007 at 4:08 pm

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