Was Colbert's Misstep Be the "Colbert Thump" of the Bush Candidacy?

Stephen's natural ability to unmask the often discriminatory nature of conservative argument ("I've got mine, good luck getting yours") was exceptional in the former show, and hopefully it can be incorporated in the present "Late Night" format.
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I both enjoy Stephen Colbert and wish him very well.

A few years back, Stephen invited me on his former show and deftly had me serving up plenty of straight-man lines which he comfortably hit for the fences. 2015-09-10-1441848965-8139853-DouglasKmiecwithStephenColbert.jpg Part of my objective that evening was to advocate for the election of Barack Obama to the presidency in 2008, a position seemingly at odds with my service as Ronald Reagan's chief constitutional lawyer.

The Gipper may or may not have known or shared my latent Democratic tendencies (after all, Reagan himself was a former Democrat). Whatever President Reagan discerned about me, such open-minded independence outraged a great many of the GOP, but it made me a perfect Colbert Report guest since my type of seeming paradox were exploited every evening by Stephen to simultaneously hoist overly rigid or outworn conservative ideas by their own petard while allowing Stephen to stand above the fray in defense of informed progressive policy.

Stephen's natural ability to unmask the often discriminatory nature of conservative argument ("I've got mine, good luck getting yours") was exceptional in the former show, and hopefully it can be incorporated in the present "Late Night" format. Every now and then a guest who like myself was rightwardly oriented would turn tables on Stephen, and present a claim that showed up a weakness in the progressive side. Stephen didn't hide this, but like the worthy conversationalist he is, allowed these moments to stand undefeated, even if they broke the liberal template.

The Supreme Court's ruling that same sex relationships are worthy of civil blessing may now seem to many, Kentucky clerks notwithstanding, fore-ordained. Yet, it most certainly was not. The very same Court allowed criminal prosecution of homosexual intimacy as recently as the late 1980s. Because that exclusionary meanness was very much alive in the land, few predicted a democratic or judicial acceptance of same sex marriage any time soon.

Stephen zeroed in on the inconsistency of anti-gay hatred with American ideal and in several masterful and highly humorous programs told us to just get over it. We would, or at least we are now. But back then there was a need for a transitional device to the greater recognition of human dignity regardless of sexual orientation. A colleague of mine and I had proposed a way to build a bridge to better understanding and true to form Stephen Colbert wanted a crack at it.

What was this transitional bridge to greater friendship? Just this, getting government out of the marriage business. In legal setting and popular press, I argued leaving marriage to the mosques, synagogues, and churches allowed for freedom of belief without using the imposition of the law to coerce. To satisfy equality, the state would maintain an administrative registry to sort out inheritance and hospital visits and other care decision-making that all of us hope will be made by those closest to us, but the labels of marriage and matrimony incorporate spiritual ideas that no one can disprove, nor should the state presume to either approve or disprove.

In short, the proposal to get the state out of the marriage business had a curious attractiveness perhaps in ways that legislation and court opinions cannot be, the idea was both more fair and inclusive to gays while also being respectful of religious views other than own (which commitment to religious freedom the real Colbert may or may not have supported).

This is not the place to take up the scope of religious freedom to which we may be committed, but the Stephen Colbert I met would appreciate that just asserting that the Kentucky clerk takes an oath to abide by the law is insufficient answer. As much as neither Stephen nor myself would be comfortable leaving to the Kentucky woman God's ultimate view of the question, I assume we both recognize that it is possible to contemplate a different context where the clerk might well be right to refuse. One does not have to see the Kentucky clerk as the descendant of Lincoln (though he was born in Kentucky) or Martin Luther King, Jr. to be concerned that there is still plenty of fundamentalism around capable of demonizing in ways we do not anticipate -- like, for example, if some state re-enacted into law the prohibition of inter-racial marriage. In that circumstance, we might indeed view a clerk's defiance of law much differently and we would applaud a clerk for refusing to follow a discriminatory law that would hurtfully deny marriage on the basis of race.

So the idea of privatizing marriage to both be more inclusionary without intruding into matters of faith then and now has its merits, and it certainly was bait for the cerebral Colbert treatment. Under the former Colbert format, the faux Colbert playfully ridiculed my idea as subversive of the moral order so effectively that you were tempted to think there was more Strom Thurmond South Carolina in the lad than his air-brushed progressive and Northwestern demeanor lets on.

In short, Stephen demonstrated on the previous Colbert Report a wit and uniqueness that was nowhere evident in the inaugural "Late show." George Clooney came by for friendship -- I think -- though there was a real missed opportunity to test Jeb's claimed civility by having the popular actor and the presidential aspirant appear simultaneously to spark some real discussion for how severely brother W hurt this country and destabilized many others with his ill-considered and uninformed military bravado. As it was, the "exciting" Jeb! was anything but, and if the evening's awkward T.V. appearance doesn't end his candidacy, it certainly didn't help it.

Could it be this was the real genius of the new "Late Night" Colbert on display? Could it be that by the missteps of opening night, Colbert saved the Republic from another Bush? It's possible I suppose, just like it is possible my candidate Hillary Clinton didn't notice that everybody else in the Department of State had a .gov email address. Of course, Mrs. Clinton goofed, as she has belatedly conceded. And while the nation may again be in Stephen's debt for what might be called the "Colbert Thump," I'm pretty certain Stephen knows the truth of the matter, and he ought not allow the salutary by-product of winnowing the presidential field excuse his lackluster beginning. unless the new show finds a way to blend in the old, the result might be "the Colbert Dump."

That would be a real loss, since the Colbert we admire is very much needed to pierce the avaricious ego of the rhyming personage named Trump who is more than capable of turning us against each other for no good purpose.

Here's hoping Stephen you soon rediscover how not to be yourself again.

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