Posted 2/26/2006 12:34:00 PM by Douglas

I still have no idea why any congressman would agree to do an interview with Stephen Colbert, but they are all freakin' hilarious.

Self-deprecation is often in short supply in Washington. But Mr. Colbert, playing the deadpan reporter in his "Better Know a District" segments, is injecting a new levity into politics. Tongue firmly in cheek, he is on a quest to interview — or lampoon — all 434 members of the House. (The man who held the 435th seat, the disgraced California Republican Randy Cunningham, "is dead to me," Mr. Colbert declared.)

[...]

It might sound like just another silly comedy shtick, and Mr. Colbert, whose show is a spinoff of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," insists he is only trying to make himself "look like an idiot." Yet his work has a strain of anthropology. As he assembles a dupes' gallery, Mr. Colbert is showing a national audience what veteran Congress-watchers already know: the members are painfully, embarrassingly human. It is called the People's House for a reason.

At the same time, the show reveals an essential truth about Washington: being humiliated on national television can be better than not being on national television at all.

I can't wait to see Ron Paul on the show when he finally gets around to Texas' fightin' 14^th