EPISODE NUMBER: 9141 (August 15, 2013)
GUEST: Richard Brodhead
SEGMENTS: Obama Rodeo Clown | Golden Age of Flammability | The Word - Gag Gift | NSA Press Conference on Domestic Spying | Sign Off - Second Installment of cOlbert’s Book Club
SUIT REPORT: Dark suit | White shirt | Navy and white patterned tie
VIDEOS: Thursday, August 15, 2013

Obama Rodeo Clown

• We are in the middle of August and if you know anything about the news business, August is notoriously a slow news month. Who can forget the summer of ’75 when Walter Cronkite did his 10-part series on ‘Spoons: The Middle Child of the Dinner Setting’.

• Some said the media would be thrown off this news story in eight seconds, but nobody rides this kind of bull like the heroes at cable news.

Golden Age of Flammability

• Yes, energy is so cheap, I can finally realise my dream of making my furnace and air conditioner fight.

• So you can’t wash your dishes any more. On the bright side, you’ve got a kiln to make new ones.

• We’re trying to throw a fracking party here and these people are killing it with their suffering. It’s like going to a barbecue and seeing a video on factory farming. I don’t want to meet all 400 cows in my burger.

The Word - Gag Gift

• Because, if a tree falls in a forest and you pay the family who heard it not to talk, then it didn’t make a sound — Especially if it falls on them

• They’re everywhere. Paying for silence is catching on like tape fire — Who wants to wash marshmallows?

• The problem with enforcing a gag order on a seven year old, is that for the rest of their lives any time someone brings up fracking, the kids wont talk, but they’ll a haunted look in their eyes. Like when you ask Vietnam Vets about ‘Agent Orange’, or ask NBC executives about Donald Trump — a.k.a. Agent Orange

NSA Press Conference on Domestic Spying

• Ever since the leaks from NSA traitor and guest at your wedding no one seems to know, Edward Snowden, we’ve all had questions about domestic spying. How much do they know about us? As much as Facebook? Or nothing at all because they’re using Google +?

• Secret, in that it was held at 3PM on a Friday in August. By then Wolf Blitzer is already three margaritas deep in the situation hammock.

• See, outside experts. Independent groups. Which will be chosen by independent outside ‘Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’. The guy who lied to Congress about the spying program five months ago, but assured us that he was being the ‘least untruthful’ he could.

• And I’m confident the groups report will contain the most transparent bulls**t legally allowed.

• Now I believe what the President is trying to say, is that our dish washers are recording everything we say.

• My fellow Americans, I come to you with important news. There are some secret things that you don’t know about, that if you had known about, might have made you angry. Well good news, we are making significant reductions in those things which to be clear, I am not saying we are doing, but rest assured, we are not doing your own good, and are now not doing them in a safe and responsible manner. I will now not take your questions.

Interview - Richard Broadhead

SC: What’s your field of learning? Before we get into this.
RB: My degree is in English.
SC: English major? Alright. You went for the big cash.
RB: That’s right, now I’m on your show.
SC: It worked out. Let’s give the humanities the ‘Colbert Bump’.

RB: All serious readings know that margins are to keep your notes in.
SC: Glad I’m not a serious reader. I would feel bad that I didn’t know that.

SC: Is ‘Moby Dick’ a metaphor for the struggle of trying to read ‘Moby Dick’?
RB: You missed your calling as a literary critic.
SC: Oh,I’ve got a fall back position. How does that pay?