I'm Doing It

"Nation, I have a major announcement to make. For over a day now the people of South Carolina have been crying out for someone who can restore our Nation's greatness to its current perfection. Well, America, that someone is now. I am proud to announce that I am forming an exploratory committee to lay the groundwork for my possible candidacy for the President of the United States of South Carolina.

"I'M DOING IT! AND WITH YOUR HELP AND POSSIBLY THE HELP OF SOME SORT OF OUTSIDE GROUP THAT I AM NOT COORDINATING WITH, WE CAN EXPLORE TAKING THIS COUNTRY BACK. THANK YOU. GOD BESS YOU ALL. AND GOD BLESS CITIZENS UNITED."

Balloons all over and the audience went crazy.

Stephen promised a major decision tonight and he did not disappoint.

But first I should tell you what went on at the beginning of the show, before this major decision. After showing a webcam video of himself exercising and pointing out his stylish gold curlicue toe slippers, Stephen talked about the various Super PACs that candidates have. No, wait - that's wrong. What I mean to say is that candidates do not have Super PACs. That would be illegal. He talked about the Super PACs that support, but do not coordinate with, the candidates.

Mitt Romney benefits from Restore Our Future which was started by Romney's lawyer, Charles R. Spies.

Newt Gingrich benefits from Winning Our Future which is run by Newt's former staffer Becky Burkett.

Rick Perry (Parry) benefits from Make us Great Again started by Mike Toomey, who once was Governor Perry's (Parry') chief of staff AND co-owner of a resort island with Dave Carney, chief strategist for the Perry (Parry) campaign.

So, that brought about a difficult decision for Stephen. He was joined by friend of the show, Trevor Potter. All he wanted was a simple answer to this question: "Can I run for president and keep my Super PAC?"

"No." There you have it, a simple answer from Trevor Potter for Stephen.

If you did not see the show tonight, you may want to head over to Colbert Nation tomorrow and watch it. It is fascinating because of all the ins and outs of the legal system as it pertains to election law. Plus there seemed to be some magic that happened.

Long story short, Jon Stewart will be taking over as head of the Colbert Super PAC, he will still get to retain all the staff currently working for the PAC, and the Super PAC can now, legally, run ads for Stephen and attacking potential opponents.

All they need to do is to make sure that Jon (and staff) doesn't coordinate with Stephen.

For fans of crossword puzzles, there was a segment about Will Shortz. Stephen was a clue in the New York Times crossword puzzle back in October of 2010, so he most likely has a warm spot in his heart for crossword puzzles.

Tonight's guest was Mike Allen of Politico which was quite appropriate for such an important show. Even as the two men were shaking hands, Mike told Stephen that Politico had a story about Stephen's candidacy already posted on Politico. That is so impressive. It's like they just wait for news to happen and then write about it right away!

Mike Allen recently wrote the eBook, "The Right Fights Back," which is available for $2.99.

Upload Your Face

Rick Parry of Perry fame did not do well in his recent GOP debate. He was trying to show that Romney has had evolving opinions over the years, but all Parry did was come out looking like a fool. Stephen was reminded of someone else and showed us the clip of George W. Bush flubbing the famous "Fool Me Once" quote. It most certainly does not look very professional for someone like Rick Parry or George W. Bush to flub up when speaking. Too bad that Stephen tripped over his tongue when he was telling us all about it.

Melinda Gates was the guest tonight. She and her husband Bill Gates do have a foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and it's worth looking at even if all you do is wait to see the photo of Melinda with Stephen. But you should read a little bit about what they are doing while you are there.

There is also the Stephen and Melinda Gates Foundation and you should go look at that too. It's to help children in two ways. One way is to eradicate polio and malaria in Africa and the second is to improve education in the United States.

Melinda spent most of the time talking about education. She said that having an effective teacher at the head of the classroom is the single most important thing to do for education. Here's how to spot a great teacher.

1. Manages class well
2. Gets students to think critically
3. Explains the lesson again if some students need to hear about it again.

Stephen asked if the plan in Wisconsin to de-certify teachers and cut their benefits helps kids in any way. While neither one came out and said it was a poor idea, I got the idea that Stephen and Melinda both thought it did not help kids.

And here's how we all can help. Go to
www.stephenandmelindagatesfoundation.org
and upload your photo. If 20,000 people submit their photo, they will donate $100,000 to DonorsChoose.org. And here's something I did not know. Stephen is on the Board of DonorsChoose!

So, go upload your face.

Stephen Colbert Bids a Fond Farewell

Stephen talked about Clipgate tonight. Fox News is complaining about the metal clip that holds the pages of Obama's Jobs Plan. That's right. The clip is not good enough for them.

Of course, if it had been a plastic spiral binder, they would have complained that it was not recyclable.

If it had been stapled, it would have been too hard to fold the pages over.

If it had been in a three-ring binder, it would have been too bulky.

If it had been bound into a book, it would have cost too much.

If it had been in electronic form, it would have been a plot too keep people without computer skills from reading it.

Oh Fox News, have you nothing better to do?

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Stephen had lots to discuss tonight. For example the Post Office. The survival of the Post Office depends on swift Congressional action. At which point Stephen bid them a fond farewell. Ah, but he had Phil Rubio, author of "There's Always Work at the Post Office," on to talk about the Postal Service. The Post Office does a whole lot more than just deliver a birthday card to your Grandmother. For example, Phil Rubio told us that there are 2 million addresses added each year and 45 million address changes. Who will do that if the Post Office doesn't? (It's not as if updating addresses makes a lot of profit for anyone.)

Stephen had a suggestion. Instead of being a public-private hybrid that is controlled by Congress but gets no taxpayer money, the Post Office should be like Halliburton. They get lots of taxpayer money and no one controls them.

But there is something you can do. (Do it for Ben Franklin, if for no other reason.) Wait two more days, then go over to Save America's Postal Service and find out about the rallies that will be held on September 27 in all 50 states (even if there is rain, or snow, or sleet). The locations for each state should be posted in 2 days, so you can check then.

If we do lose our Postal Service, I'm going to be asking one of you to deliver my Grandma's birthday card directly to her house. I'll even give you 44 cents to take it there.

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Stephen also talked about Presidential Hopeful, and mom to 28 children, Michele Bachmann. During the recent GOP debate it came out that she is strongly pro-choice as long as that choice is cervical cancer. You see, she really went after Rick Parry for signing an executive order that young girls would have to get a vaccination to guard against cervical cancer.

So I did some Googling. (I admit it, I Google.) Michele Bachmann also seems to be against anti-bullying which would thus make her pro-bullying.

So, getting cervical cancer and being bullied are okay with her.

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Moving right along on this busy night. Michael Moore stopped over. It was a great chance for a liberal and a conservative to sit down and talk. Michael Moore has a new book out, "Here Comes Trouble." (No, it's not about Stephen!)

When Stephen asked if there was something that made Michael Moore so outspoken, Moore told Stephen a story from high school. It was graduation night and the principal was checking to make sure everyone looked right. The boys were supposed to be wearing ties. Well, the kid next to Michael Moore in line had one of those string ties on. Long story short, the principal pulled that kid out of line and sent him out of school. He did not get to walk in the graduation ceremony. Michael Moore kept quiet, not wanting to also get kicked out of graduation. But after that he vowed never to stay silent when he should be speaking out.

Climate Reality Project

http://climaterealityproject.org/the-event/

More about that link in a little bit. Tonight's show was, of course, good. You should really go over to Colbert Nation and watch the full episode online. I can't do it justice unless I would just print a full transcript of the program. But that won't do it justice either because you wouldn't see facial expressions and all the graphics and video footage on the show.

So here's just a little bit about tonight's show. Stephen apparently agrees with me that Tim Pawlenty is pinning his hopes on being Mitt Romney's running mate. Stephen even showed the two of them walking together somewhere and yes, Pawlenty looks like he's just been invited to the prom.

Paul Krugman was on for a short interview and Stephen had to remind him that children might be watching the show. And when it started to get a little bit politically incorrect (at least in Stephen's imagination), Krugman said "Steve Jobs is Esther Williams."

Bobby Jindal has endorsed Rick Parry, which makes perfect sense because big old Texas is right next to little old Louisiana and we all know Rick Parry has 234 notches on his belt.

Poor Ron Paul, waiting for some kind of endorsement, finally got one and Stephen showed the video of that endorsement.

And then the special guest for the night was Al Gore. They talked about global warming. And although Stephen thinks there's no proof, Gore stated that 97% to 98% of the scientists around the world working in all the various fields related to climate agree that yes it is a problem and we should be fixing it.

Also, if you watch online, you can hear Stephen ask "Al Gore", after a comment Al Gore made about Stephen, "What the heck are you talking about, sir?"

And so the link to Climate Reality Project. Visit soon and watch.

Note: Stephen did not actually say heck.

Chilean Model

Here's a quick wrap-up of the GOP debates from last night, courtesy of Stephen Colbert.

Herman Cain believes in the Chilean Model for fixing Social Security. Stephen appreciates Chilean Models.

Ron Paul says that getting rid of the minimum wage would help the poor. I suppose maybe if they earned less money they would have more money??? No, that doesn't make sense, because if you earn less money you have less money.

Rick Parry was the winner according to Stephen. He knows about science and how badly that worked out for Galileo. (Because Galileo claimed that the Earth revolved around the Sun and not vice versa, the Catholic Church basically found him guilty of heresy.) And he has the best record as far as death row inmates. While Rick Parry has been Governor, 234 inmates have been executed. (I wonder which of the ten commandments that falls under.)

Also, Rick Parry is so popular because he sure seems to be in favor of getting rid of Social Security. It's about time we stop sending grandma and grandpa an average of $1,177 of month just because they are old and paid in to Social Security when they were working.

Barack Obama gave a speech to the Joint Session of Congress. Without listening to the speech, Mitch McConnell already knew what the President would say and already knew that he doesn't agree with it. That would make him a psychic.

Does anyone know if Mitch McConnell likes peanut butter? I suppose it's common knowledge that he doesn't. Yeah, we can probably say Mitch McConnell doesn't like peanut butter.

But anyway, the President was to talk about the number one issue facing the nation - Jobs. There are a lot of people out of work. They don't have a job. (I wonder if that could mean that people who do have jobs are not so secure and perhaps are very careful about what they do so that they don't lose their jobs. One thing that would make a boss unhappy with an employee would be if that employee doesn't show up for work.)

Sadly, David Vitter (R-LA) will not be able to listen to the President talk about jobs because David Vitter will be skipping work to have a football party. On the one hand, there's watching a football game. On the other hand, there's going to work. But I think David Vitter's plan was actually in tribute to all the unemployed people. He was showing solidarity with them by not being at his job. And that has got to help all the people who are unemployed. It won't help them get a job, but it will help them to feel good for a day knowing that David Vitter isn't on the job. Okay, I'm not explaining this well enough to show how important it is for David Vitter to put pleasure before obligation. I'll do some more thinking and try to come up with reasons why David Vitter is doing the right thing.

But what a treat for Colbertians tonight. A broadcast legend interviewed Tom Brokaw. And I noticed something very interesting tonight with the interview. It was different. Stephen did a lot more listening than he usually does and let the guest do most of the talking. It was very unusual!

Loud and Clear, Sir. Unofficially, Loud and Clear

Tonight's rerun was from August 17. Stephen gave us the sad news that Salvatore Purpura had moved on and was now with the Parry camp. You can read more about it at the posting on August 17 about Salvatore Purpura.
Stephen, quoting himself, had this to say about Salvatore Purpura:

"We're not surprised. Sal is the best in the business. That's why we went with him. We're happy for Sal and we are even happier that Governor Parry has sent the clear signal of which Super PAC he trusts to receive all that unlimited money waiting to pour in on his behalf. Loud and clear, Sir. Unofficially, loud and clear."

I noticed that Stephen did remember to spell that as Parry with an A. Always consistent, sir, always consistent.

But in what could have been a mark against Stephen, he reported on Rick Santorum's speech in Iowa Falls where Santorum cleverly compares a napkin to a paper towel. His finding? They are different. His conclusion? Proof that gay marriage is wrong.

Says Santorum, "I can call this napkin a paper towel, but it is a napkin. Why? Because it is ... what it is!"

Stephen agrees. "If you give paper napkins and paper towels equal status, you undermine the sanctity of the thing you use to pick up dog vomit."

And then it happened. Stephen almost lost it. He almost did an "Anderson Cooper." Yep, folks, he started to laugh on air while reporting the news. Luckily for him and for the viewing audience, he had that roll of paper towels to hide behind and shield his grin until he could regain his composure.

That ... was ... close.

Stephen reminded us that no one can just redefine words to mean whatever we might want them to mean. Just like santorum means only "the former Senator from Pennsylvania." Yep, words have meanings. Always been that way. Always will.

And here Stephen took a little poetic license to make a plug for Brawny Paper Towels.

Tonight's guest was Jeff Bridges. I don't know why, but I kept thinking about SCUBA gear. Anyway, Jeff did a nice job singing. It's true that talented people tend to be multi-talented.

Make 'Em Laugh

It was the rerun tonight from Stephen's last show before he went on vacation. That's the show that he had the WOI-DT news team to help him with Parry with an A-Gate.

It's also the episode where Stephen showed footage of Anderson Cooper. Apparently Anderson Cooper can't keep his cool on the air while reporting about Gerard Depardieu. I don't know which is funnier - a TV news person laughing at a story or a comedian laughing at his own joke. Regardless of which one is funnier for the audience, it does seem that once a person gets to laughing in a situation where they should not laugh, it becomes almost impossible to stop laughing and get serious again.

It reminds me of that episode on the old sit com Mary Tyler Moore Show about "Chuckles Bites the Dust." If you would like to watch part of it, head on over to YouTube to Watch part of that show. You can also see Betty White in her younger days.

I'm also reminded that sometimes Stephen seems to be unable to control his laughter, so perhaps he had better be a little bit careful about mocking Anderson Cooper.

Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

Tonight's rerun was from August 11. So, we got to see the "Vote for Rick Parry" ad again! And we learned again about the shenanigans of WOI-DT.

Also, Stephen talked about Sarah Palin and her Bus Tour, or should I say, Family Vacation. That got me to thinking. What if Sarah had invited Stephen to tour along on the bus while he is on vacation? Think of the fun they could have! Discussing Politics. Talking about their favorite moments in American History. Singing American Folk Songs like Yankee Doodle.

Stephen could give her pointers about running for President. After all, he did run last time, or at least he gave it his best effort. And then as sort of a thank-you for all the advice, Palin could ask Stephen to be her running mate.

Well, if that does happen, remember, you heard it here first!

Parry or Perry

There seems to be confusion over how to spell that name. It's exactly the type of confusion that Stephen Colbert could investigate and discover the reasons for the confusion and a good solution to that problem. Unfortunately, Stephen is on vacation. So, unless someone else figures it out, we will have to wait at least two weeks to know why this is happening.

That being said, Governor Rick Perry must be so proud of Katy Perry. She recently tied Michael Jackson's record for the most #1 singles from the same album. I'm quite sure that the Governor of Texas is telling everyone about her accomplishment.

And what about him? Katy Perry is undoubtedly pleased to see how well he did in the Iowa Straw Poll that happened recently in Ames, Iowa. Considering how many people live in Ames, not to mention Iowa and the United States, 718 votes is quite a showing. Of course, Ron Paul had 4,671 votes, but no one is paying any attention to him.

This will all play out over the next 14 long months. Anything that happens in the next two weeks will go unreported by Stephen who is, as I mentioned previously, on vacation. So, as stories develop and become newsworthy, I'll post that information here along with commentary if needed. Anything else that seems interesting or funny or weird may also show up here, depending on what strikes me as worth posting at the time.

So, stay tuned even though Stephen is on vacation. I'll keep writing. And, if by chance I happen to see him vacationing in my neck of the woods, I'll be sure to get some photos and post them here.

PARRY-with-an-A-GATE!

Stephen is still waiting to hear from Emmy-Awaiting ABC5 WOI-DT News Weather Sports in Des Moines, Iowa, about the results of the Multi-Hundred dollars ad campaign from the Colbert Super PAC. The PAC made a commercial and urged Iowa voters to write in Parry with an A. Now we all want to know: How many people spelled it with an A? We may have did it, but we don't know.

However, the Iowa GOP still refuses to release the results for public scrutiny. Stephen had proof positive on the show of at least one voter that wrote in Parry with an A.

Tonight he checked in with the all the stars at WOI:

Amanda Krenz
Rachel Pierce
John Walters
Brad Edwards
Katie Eastman

They are working on the story and following all leads. And they will continue to hunt down this story until Stephen gets his answers. More on this as it develops.

In other stories, the Barnstormers have named a new coach.

Stephen reported on the apparent laughing gas overdose of Anderson Cooper. And there must be a lot of that going around because Stephen had uncontrollable fits of laughter caused by merely seeing a photo of Steve Doocy. Maybe it's because Doocy was born in Iowa. I don't know.

Anyway, Stephen's guest was Kevin Mitnick who served 5 years in prison because of his computer crimes, you know - hacking. He started hacking in high

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Hi folks, Kevin Mitnick here. Please go out and buy my book "Ghost in the Wires - My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker." You can buy it at Barnes & Noble, and other fine bookstores. Thanks a lot!
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school and just kept doing it. He even has written a book about it, "Ghost in the Wires - My Adventures as the World's Most Wanted Hacker." He continues to hack now, but it's on the up and up. He is a consultant and helps companies find their vulnerabilities so that they can fix it.

Salvatore Purpura

Goodbye Stephen Colbert. Hello Rick Parry.

No, Rick Parry is not taking over The Colbert Report. Didn't mean to scare you. Sorry.

Salvatore A. Purpura had been the Treasurer for the Colbert Super PAC. He quit (resigned) that job. Then, and who could have seen this coming (?), he took the job of Treasurer for Texas Governor and Presidential Hopeful Rick Parry. Stephen explained all about it and you can also read about it over at Politico.

(Warning, you might get sidetracked, like I did, and read a story that is not about Stephen Colbert. It sounded, well, weird.)

Stephen also had a short bit about Rick Santorum talking about marriage. Rick Santorum was comparing marriage to paper napkins and paper towels. He said you can call it what you want, but you can't define a paper towel as a paper napkin or vice versa. And Stephen was correct to note that Santorum would fully understand that you can't just up and redefine a word to mean something else. Who does that sort of thing?

The interview guest tonight was Jeff Bridges. I was going to say actor Jeff Bridges, but tonight he was singer Jeff Bridges. He sang quite nicely, looked very comfortable and at ease singing and playing the guitar. I'm often surprised when an actor sings or a singer acts, and yet I shouldn't be. With so many people trying to make a career in the entertainment industry, it just makes sense that the people who can sing AND act would be more likely to have a career in the performing arts.

And yes, you can go over to Colbert Nation and hear Jeff Bridges sing.

Manatee of the Airwaves

Join Now!

Of course that could mean two different things from tonight's show. First of all and most important, if you join Stephen's Colbert Super PAC, and if you donate some money, cha-ching, your name will at some time crawl across the bottom of the screen while The Colbert Report is on the TV Machine in what Stephen calls a Cash Crawl.

The other thing it could mean is to Join Now at Newt Gingrich's website. But the really strange thing about that is that when Stephen was showing us what New Gingrich's website looked like, it was a bit different from what it looks like now, just a short time later.

For one thing, the photo is a bit different. Gingrich looks happier now. He's wearing a blue shirt and red tie, not quite as good as wearing the American Flag for a tie, but still, it is the right color combination. And it has a lot of donate buttons, but one of the buttons is different. Instead of saying Donate Now, it says Join Now! Did that get changed because Stephen talked about it tonight? Or is it just a case of website updates occurring at random times?

Also, the wording is different. Instead of saying "Support Newt today to help make sure our winning message reaches all voters" it says "Join the Campaign to get the latest news, announcements, event information and exclusive updates." And of course, the website I'm looking at now has a very nice American flag in the background instead of the word Conservative (okay okay, onservative but I assume it would be Conservative if I could see the whole word).

Now that makes me wonder. You can "join now" and get exclusive updates. But if anyone can join now, and it looks like everyone can, it doesn't seem very exclusive to me.

Great, now Stephen has gotten me so interested that I'm looking all over the Gingrich website. Now I'm looking at the Gear you can Get. And before you say, "whoopie I wanna get some gear" you need to know there are flaws, well some flaws. You can get a yard sign, but when I look at it, it's so small it would work out better as a Blue Hat sign. But ouch! Those two metal poles would need to be poked into your hat and thus into your head. And then there's t-shirts, but they are all wrinkly at the bottom. There are also Newt buttons, but they are actually more like body armor. I'm looking at the images on the website right now and the buttons are bigger than the t-shirts! It would get the message across to everyone who sees you, because the button stretches all the way across your chest. If it was up to me, I would have the buttons be smaller so that they just took up a small amount of space on the t-shirts. I would make the yarn signs much bigger, about 30 times bigger than the hat.

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Okay, you want to look at the Gear, don't you. Fine, I'll put the link up. But, you have to promise to play the guessing game that I made up. It works on my computer so I hope it will work on yours. Go to the Newt Store (not the one at the Nature Center) and pick one item, any item. Memorize its location. Hit the refresh button on your browser a few times. Did the items change place? Okay then you can play the game. Try to guess where your selected item will be the next time you hit Refresh. Keep track of how many times you are correct. It's harder than you think to predict where the items will move to.

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But I digress way too much. Back to what Stephen talked about. He did say that Gingrich owes $800,000 for his website. What? Are you kidding me? I would have done it for a mere $100,000 and I would have given him way more Donate buttons. Stephen did sort of mention that the website is full on Donate buttons: Donate, Donate Today, Donate Now, Donate to support the campaign. (Oops, he forgot the plain old link at bottom of page that just says Donate. That's okay Stephen. Maybe it wasn't there earlier today.)

You know what, here's a free Donate button that Gingrich can use. That would help save money on his website cost. And if Gingrich had hired me to do his website, I would have done a much better job of getting good domain names and getting all the necessary domain names.





Stephen had a lot more stuff on the show about different guys with really interesting things to say. For example, Rick Perry said this on July 16, 2011:

"I'm getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I've been called to do."

And on July 18, 2011, he had this to say:

"There's a lot of different ways to be called. My mother may call me for dinner."

(I hate to break it to Rick Perry, but hasn't Michele Bachmann already been "called" to run for POTUS?)

And Rush Limbaugh, the famous "Manatee of the Airwaves", had this to say recently: "Obama's out there pushing this August 2 deadline to get this thing done. That's because," (wait for it....) "Ramadan is August 1."

However, Representative Louie Gohmert (R - TX) had this to say on July 17, 2011:

"I can't help and be a little cynical here. Because we find out the president has a big birthday bash scheduled for August the 3rd, celebrities flying in from all over, and lo and behold, August 2nd is the deadline for getting something done so that they can have this massive maybe the biggest fundraising dinner in history for a birthday celebration."

Uh oh. Someone is a little bit peeved. Take a look at this Wikipedia page on Louie Gohmert and pay special attention to the part, right after his name, that says born August 18. Yep, someone is afraid his birthday won't get any attention. And is it my imagination or does that photo of Louie Gohmert look like he could be Stephen's identical twin brother?