American Experience

I never get tired of hearing the audience chanting, "Stephen. Stephen. Stephen." And neither does Stephen. It goes right to his heart, almost keeping it beating. He seems to have a special relationship with his audience that is special.

Not unlike what Mitt Romney said on the first leg of his World Tour about a special relationship. He started in the UK (United Kingdom or England or Britain, whatever) and made headlines there at the Guardian. "Disconcerting" is what he said about the Olympics being held in London. Oops.

Mitt Romney's campaign also talked about the special relationship Romney would have with the UK because of his Anglo-Saxon heritage. Stephen explained that that could be code for WASP, meaning White Anglo Saxon Protestant, but since Romney only said Anglo Saxon, Stephen suggested you could leave off the W and the P when referring to Romney.

Every time I play Scrabble, I always try to get the word "that" on the Scrabble board and then I claim that "that" refers to Quiznos and try to claim the score for that word instead of for "that." That strategy never works. Oh, well. But now there is confusion, some of it intentional about the word "that" in presidential politics. You can read about "You Didn't Build That" over at Huffington Post. President Obama was talking about, basically, working together to get things done. Funny story. Stephen showed clips of Mitt Romney saying almost the exact same thing that Barack Obama had said. It's hard to bash someone if you keep agreeing with him.

However, Stephen was also a bit upset about that comment as it relates to him personally. He built the show, The Colbert Report, by himself. To prove it, he sent his whole staff on a permanent break and was able to do "The Word" with just a simple desk lamp, his iPhone, and a dry erase board. The dry erase marker, well that was a bit of a problem. I'm happy to report that everyone, including Stephen, came back after the break.

Stephen's guest tonight was Dan Gross, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. While Stephen suggested that a moment of silence is fitting after a gun violence tragedy, Dan Gross suggested that there are ways that we can prevent people from being killed by guns while still protecting our Second Amendment rights. Go on over to WeAreBetterThanThis.org to read more.