Check out this amazing clip of Colbert slamming Matt Lauer and the morning news shows. There are 2 moments that I was really impressed by in this segment. First, when Stephen explains that Congressmen want to appear on the Report because it’s not only “the news”, it also “IS news”. That’s a smackdown if I’ve ever heard one, especially in the context of all of those rediculous clips. Here’s the other moment I really enjoyed:

Stephen: But, the Today Show and Good Morning America could be right, I could be asking the wrong questions. For instance, I asked US Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, who proposed requiring the the display of the Ten Commandments in the House and Senate Chambers, if he could name the Ten Commandments. What I should have asked him is this:

Diane Sawyer: Is it possible that tanning is addictive?!?!

That is an absolutely classic Colbert moment and it exposes part of the mission behind the Colbert Report and the Daily Show. Stephen once said in an interview (I wish I could find the reference) that a moment similar to this one, where Jon Stewart combined video of a politician denying ever making some statement with an earlier video of him making it, to be “objectivity in its purest form”. For Stephen, moments like the one with Congressman Westmoreland aren’t just humor or even satire- they are an example of what it means to call politicians on their bullshit.

I’m a fan of objectivity, but one of the ways that the news media has screwed up their commitment to objectivity is in their treatment of politicians, with whom they almost always play softball for fear of looking partisan. The fact is that politicians are full of mountains and mountains of crap, and sometimes it’s appropiate to call them on it. Guys like Matt Lauer should take a lesson in when it’s correct to give a politician a hard time, as with hypocrites like Westmoreland, and when it isn’t, as with Wexler who was clearly just being a good sport. That’s what makes it so offensive to see Lauer brush off this show as “Hip”, and what makes Stephen’s venomous response so satisfying.