Late-night “comedian” Stephen Colbert is making a last gasp to save his dying show, or at the very least set himself up as a patron saint of victimhood among Democrats when he moves into the next chapter of his career.
Colbert threw a big fit this week over what he claimed was censorship from the Federal Communications Commission enforced by his bosses at CBS. The bit of “censorship” in question was a Colbert interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico. CBS warned that airing the interview could violate the FCC’s equal time rules, which require broadcasters to afford equal time for candidates in the same race in a certain window before the election.
FCC CHAIRMAN DENIES ‘HOAX’ THAT AGENCY BLOCKED COLBERT-TALARICO INTERVIEW: ‘HIGHLY ENTERTAINED’
That would mean that Colbert would also need to provide time to Talarico’s Democratic primary opponents, Rep. Jasmine Crockett and Ahmad Hassan. CBS claims that it did not block the interview and instead “presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.” Colbert ended up uploading the interview to his show’s YouTube channel.
All of this was nothing more than a lame political stunt designed to manipulate the Democratic activists who obsess over “resisting” President Donald Trump. Talarico fundraised $2.5 million in under a day through this fake censorship “scandal,” which he needs, given that he is trailing Crockett in polls.
But Colbert isn’t just trying to help another white man defeat a strong black woman in an election. He is trying to cash in some victimhood points as well. You may recall that, after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated, Jimmy Kimmel got on his late-night “comedy” show and lied to his audience that Kirk was killed by a right-wing extremist. Kimmel was briefly taken off-air by ABC (not the FCC or the Trump administration) over this, leading to a martyr tour where Kimmel was portrayed (and self-portrayed) as the real victim of Kirk’s murder.
Colbert is looking for a similar sympathy tour, finding any way to claim he is being censored for standing up to Trump. It is why he continues to goad his bosses at CBS, calling their statement about his Talarico interview “crap” and constantly insulting them on CBS’s own airwaves. As the months go by, Colbert is getting more and more desperate for something he can cling to in order to get himself a sympathy parade in the media, because CBS is axing his egregiously expensive, underachieving show for good in May.
Colbert and Talarico are mostly getting what they wanted from this, which is a fake scandal that boosts their profiles, as one is going to lose his show and the other is going to lose his election. It is all the more embarrassing for Colbert, though, who has long since abandoned trying to be a comedian and instead wants to become the scolding schoolmarm face of the Democratic Party.