Stephen Colbert and Philosophy - Aaron Allen Schiller [79]
MANSFIELD: Right.
COLBERT: That’s some cajones!
MANSFIELD: Right.
COLBERT: Who’s the least manly man in Washington, in politics?
MANSFIELD: John Kerry.
COLBERT: I agree with you. I agree with you there. First of all, “Kerry” is a girl name. Right? Second of all, we know one of those purple hearts was fake. I think it was chocolate or something. But here’s what I don’t understand. I know he’s a wuss, but how does a wuss get the other two purple hearts? I don’t understand.
MANSFIELD: I don’t either. He must have done something to deserve them.
COLBERT: What is most wussy about him to you?
MANSFIELD: He vacillates. He says one thing one time, and another thing another time.
COLBERT: So he changes his mind occasionally.
MANSFIELD: Yes, or even frequently.
COLBERT: See, that’s what I like about President Bush. No matter how the facts change, his opinion doesn’t. [Mansfield nods] That’s what we need.
MANSFIELD: That’s right.136
Colbert’s strategy here is the same as it was in the Flanagan interview. As soon as he adopts Mansfield’s position and applies it to President Bush’s supremely confident but tragically ineffective execution of the Iraq war, manliness suddenly appears to be a vice, not a virtue. The same thing happens when they shift from President Bush to Senator Kerry, Bush’s opponent in the 2004 presidential election. Mansfield suggests Kerry is the least manly man in Washington because he often changes his mind. Never mind the fact that he was a war hero in Vietnam. Instead of showing confidence in situations of risk, Kerry shows indecision and timidity. This was one of the most devastating arguments used against John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. Once his opponents successfully defined him as a flip-flopping decision maker, his campaign was doomed. However, when Colbert explores the converse of Mansfield’s value, it is Bush’s stubbornness that seems like the real vice, not John Kerry’s openness to new information. No matter how the facts change, Bush’s opinions do not, Colbert says. Put that way, manliness appears to be a celebration of ideology over reason, hardly the quality one would want in a leader.
Of course, Colbert doesn’t just go after conservatives. He has compared Howard Dean, the Democratic National Committee chairman, to Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s brutal dictator, for suggesting that the popular vote would not matter in determining his party’s nominee for president in 2008.
When it comes to ending the fierce Clinton-Obama primary rivalry, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is finally showing some sack. Listen to what Dean told the Financial Times about who the superdelegates will choose for the party’s nominee. “I do not think in the long run it will come down to the popular vote.” Exactly, popular vote is a stupid way to settle an election… . Just ask President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. He’s on your side, Howard!137
This is classic Colbert, more of the same ironic mirroring. Instead of directly challenging Dean’s reasoning, he adopts Dean’s position and then reduces it to an absurdity by explaining what it implies: the leader of the democratic party doesn’t believe in democracy, the popular vote is “a stupid way to settle an election.” What could be more ridiculous? To top it off he assures Dean he’s right because Robert Mugabe would agree with him. That’s what one might call stinging praise. Yes, it is a rhetorical analogy, and not at all a fair comparison. Dean is no Mugabe. But if you know anything about the current state of Zimbabwe, you know Dean is in trouble if his position on an election outcome in any way resembles Mugabe’s stranglehold on Zimbabwe’s democratic institutions. In the end, Colbert’s ploy works again. His audience gets it immediately. And this time one of the country’s most important leaders is exposed as a sophist.
Colbert doesn’t just go after individuals. He also attacks institutions, especially the “opinion making” branch of