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acroyearStephen Colbert - 2006 Knox College Commencement Address:
And when you enter the workforce, you will find competition from those crossing our all-too-poorest borders. Now I know you’re all going to say, “Stephen, Stephen, immigrants built America.” Yes, but here’s the thing—it’s built now. I think it was finished in the mid-70s sometime. At this point it’s a touch-up and repair job. But thankfully Congress is acting and soon English will be the official language of America. Because if we surrender the national anthem to Spansih, the next thing you know, they’ll be translating the Bible. God wrote it in English for a reason! So it could be taught in our public schools.
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Date: 2006-06-06 03:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-06 04:17 pm (UTC)Colbert's comedy is his subtlety. He as a person is a liberal.
His *character*, his public persona as a comedian and the role he presents on TV and in public speeches like this and the recent White House correspondents dinner, is that of the right-wing nutball whose arguments defy all logic.
this was totally a satire of right-wing talking points - he presents them so calmly as to make it clear just how stupid their arguments can get. as this example shows, he takes to the extreme the illogic by blending in all their talking points to make them sound as if they're related.
read the speech as a whole. the whole thing is a comedy routine.
he's kinda the opposite of Al Franken - where Franken's comedy exposes the right-wing illogic from the outside, Colbert exagerates the illogic from a first-person perspective that he's carefully constructed over the last 10 years.
the end result is that, of course, most republicans don't get the joke. oddly, several liberals and moderates (ahem, mr. cohen) don't either.
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Date: 2006-06-06 07:14 pm (UTC)