Thursday, April 10, 2014

End of an era

With the sad news that Stephen Colbert will take over for David Letterman on CBS, television will lose one of its greatest characters ever created.

The Colbert Report is easily one of the best shows to ever appear on the small screen, even though it's on cable and not seen by the wider audience that CBS can provide.

As always, network brass are looking to appeal to younger and hipper audiences. 

But, since Colbert will be retiring his brilliant character of a blowhard conservative talk-show host, he may not grab that young audience.

Of course, Rush Limbaugh helped Colbert today by calling his hiring by CBS a "war on the American heartland." 

There is no pundit, no columnist and no voice in America who can take down the powers-that-be with such brutal satire and "truthiness" than Colbert. Of course, having a stable of 18 writers helps.

Colbert's in-your-face smack-down of Bush II as well as the media at the correspondents' dinner was one of the most heroic performances of all time.

By adopting a faux-conservative persona, Colbert laid bare the hypocrisy, the hollowness and meanness of modern ultra-conservatives. Check out the comments after this story on the Wall Street Journal for validation. There are some seriously clueless folks out there.

By nearly always wearing a straight face, Colbert provokes more laughter than anyone I can remember.

Yes, he does have a few more months on "The Colbert Report," and they'll be bittersweet.

I'll miss "The Word," which lampooned Bill O'Reilly's "Talking Points" segment.

I'll miss "Better Know a District," which managed to both ridicule and humanize our elected representatives.

I'll miss the mockery of it all.

I rarely stay up to watch "The Colbert Report." I watch it the next night at 7 p.m. on Comedy Central.

And, that won't happen on CBS.

Goodbye Colbert, it was great watching you.

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