I'm Going to Carolina

If you've been paying attention, you know that Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucus. Okay, now if you've really been paying attention, you now know that he didn't. It seems some ballots have been lost or miscounted and now Rick Santorum is the winner. He wont' be declared the winner because of all the errors and inconsistencies, but he does have more votes. Imagine what it might have been like in New Hampshire if Iowa had not made this "oops". If Santorum had come out of Iowa as the declared winner, people in New Hampshire probably would have been more inclined to vote for him.

In other political news for the GOP, New Gingrich received the endorsement of Rick Perry when Perry dropped out. Great news for Gingrich until a short time later when wife number two (so, not the current one, but the previous one) revealed in an interview that Newt wasn't exactly Mr. Family Values.

Stephen took time out of talking politics to have a sit-down interview with retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. Justice Stevens has a new book out, "Five Chiefs" a memoir about his time on the Supreme Court. Although at first disappointed to not be able to interview an actual sitting Justice, Stephen eventually settled in for a comfortable interview, in fact so comfortable that he asked if Justice Stevens could fix a speeding ticket for him. Conclusion: "You're Guilty." Stephen took it well.

We learned some interesting tidbits of information tonight. For example, do you know what the "Highest Court in the Land" refers to? It is actually a basketball court on the fifth floor of the Supreme Court Building. I did not know that. Also, Justice Stevens wrote the dissenting opinion for Citizens United.

Stephen did not think that Justice Stevens should be able to judge people just because he is a justice. I can see Stephen's point, after all, "Judge Not." But, still, that's kind of the whole purpose of the Supreme Court.

When he was nearly done with the interview, Stephen asked, "Are there any decisions you made that you later regretted?"

"Other than this interview? No."

Tonight's guest was Carrie Rebora Barratt, Associate Director for Collections over at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She and Stephen discussed a huge painting and a very famous one, Washington Crossing the Delaware. She did say that when they had the painting restored, they checked on the back of the painting for the key to the Revolution. Stephen pointed out a fob on the painting. Interesting. Stephen is quite observant.

You do know that typically, after the last commercial, Stephen just waves and says "Good Night." But every once in a while there is something different. Tonight was one of those nights. There was a very special treat. So special that I'm not going to tell you what it was. You need to go over to Colbert Nation later on and watch tonight's show online. I will say this, Stephen is very talented. (Hint: Look at the names in the Labels for this post.)

Fear the Vest

Unless you have been in a cave these past few months, you know that it is the Iowa Caucuses tonight. As Stephen so clearly pointed out, that means there's a bunch of old Midwestern people in a high school gym sitting on folding chairs.

Some might say each candidate in the GOP had their turn at flavor of the month. Remember Herman Cain? Perhaps he should have come on The Colbert Report way back when so that he could have received the famous Colbert Bump. (Too late now, Herman.) Jon Huntsman decided against coming to Iowa. Most of the GOP candidates have been crisscrossing Iowa in huge buses and drinking coffee in every small town. Millions of dollars have been spent on TV ads.

And after all of this, Stephen was ready to predict the outcome. He announced on his show tonight that he was predicting that Jon Huntsman would lose Iowa. It may have been this quote from Huntsman that, along with not bothering to show up, lost Iowa for him:

"The pick corn in Iowa. They actually pick presidents here in New Hampshire."

Stephen was not willing to predict who the winner would be, but he did talk about Rick Santorum. At one of his speeches, Santorum wore a sweater vest. That speech went over quite well and ever since, Santorum has been wearing sweater vests, a different color it seems, to each event, almost as if he had a rainbow of vests in his closet.

What Stephen was able to do for political junkies and Iowanians alike was to have Megyn Shelly on the show to predict the outcome. ( I don't know if Megyn Shelly and Marcel the Shell are related, but they do look somewhat alike, so I'm thinking maybe cousins.) Unfortunately, there really was not enough time for Meygn to make this determination, but Stephen is hopeful that within a month, Megyn will come through with the news we are all waiting for.

Senator Bernie Sanders, Independent Senator from Vermont, was Stephen's first guest of 2012. He brought along his book, "The Speech," which is essentially the speech he gave when he was filibustering in the Senate. Senator Sanders believes middle class people, you know - the hard working "man on the street" - are having a rough time while the rich can fully afford to pay their share of taxes. When Stephen confronted him about his attitude towards the job creators, Senator Sanders reminded him that the rich are not creating jobs, they are outsourcing them to China. Senator Sanders also talked about the need for a constitutional amendment to save American democracy. You can go over to his website, sanders.senate.gov, to find out more information. Stephen expects the process of getting the amendment passed and ratified should be pretty much wrapped up by May, but I think that might be a little bit optimistic. Time will tell.