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Friday, January 19, 2007

TV Watch: Colbert And O'Reilly

I first saw Colbert interview someone on The Daily Show when Stewart was off for a week. It wasn't pretty. Stephen seemed unprepared, unable to bridge topics, and just outright nervous. It was clear when the Colbert Report first aired that he had gotten his game on and was becoming quite adept at it.

Last night, however, Stephen Colbert may have topped any interview I've ever seen on television. His parody of a right wing pundit met up with one of the grandpas of the form - Bill O'Reilly. This is an interview walking a razor's edge. When Colbert came out early with an inside jab about O'Reilly's history of sexually harassing his crew - it looked as if things were already going to tip over. O'Reilly even made a comment that he already regretted appearing.

Colbert, though, has gotten so well trained in his persona as faux Reilly that in moments he had wrapped Bill back into what must be Bill's favorite topic: Bill himself. With that, he ended with the best possible response to Bill he could have hoped for:

"If you're just an act, then what does that make me?"

Brilliant. Tip of the hat, Colbert. Tip of the hat.



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2 comments:

Thomas said...

Just finished watching. The sexual predator thing--man, I don't ever want Colbert not on my side. The man sticks the knife in, and just keeps right on moving. I almost didn't catch it.

Josh said...

It almost wiffed past me as well ... I thought he was just getting a dig in on Stewart to buddy up ...

and then he said, "You don't know what that's like" ... and then it clicked. I'm not even sure Bill caught it at first.