[On Saturday, the NY Daily News -- Colbert's show is taped in Manhattan -- covered his appearance, only talking about his opening statement and joking comments. The Lieberman-esque op-ed department just saw it the FOX way -- as a waste of time and in bad taste. No comment on the other serious witnesses, how other celebrities testified in the past (including Elmo) or his serious from the heart comment cited below.
OTOH, I talked with someone who never even heard of the guy. Much blog verbiage is spent on just that sort of inside baseball.]
Stephen Colbert, yes him, was a witness today in a House "Hearing on Immigration and Farm Labor" though Rep. Chu noted that given some past testimony (from Loretta Switt or Elmo), it isn't totally unprecedented. Colbert had an amusing intro (a bit different from his more straight prepared remarks), but he was serious in an answer to Chu:
In reasonable doses, this sort of thing is a way to promote important issues, as does his interviews weekly that provide diverse material to the public. [Update: Keith Olbermann had a good segment on this matter that agrees with me.]
OTOH, I talked with someone who never even heard of the guy. Much blog verbiage is spent on just that sort of inside baseball.]
Stephen Colbert, yes him, was a witness today in a House "Hearing on Immigration and Farm Labor" though Rep. Chu noted that given some past testimony (from Loretta Switt or Elmo), it isn't totally unprecedented. Colbert had an amusing intro (a bit different from his more straight prepared remarks), but he was serious in an answer to Chu:
"I like talking about people who don't have any power. This seems like, one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work, but don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time we ask them to leave. That seems like an interesting contradiction to me." He said immigrant workers were seen, particularly during a recession, as "the least of our brothers." While he "didn't want to take any of their hardship away from [other groups with problems]," Colbert concluded, breaking character, that "migrant workers suffer, and have no rights."The chairwoman invited him on because he -- and this isn't the first time -- when his satire made an important issue known to the general public:
Colbert was testifying on behalf of the United Farm Workers Union, which is pushing an agriculture jobs bill to give illegal immigrant farm workers a path to citizenship. The UFW started a program called "Take Our Jobs," with the goal of drawing attention to the large immigrant population that comprises America's farming work force. Primarily, the UFW argues, this is because Americans don't want those types of jobs, and the program is a tongue-in-cheek way of drawing attention to this. Colbert is one of 16 people to take up the UFW's offer for Americans to literally "take the jobs" of immigrants.I think this is a reasonable idea, though realize some might think it's inappropriate (see Colbert's show last night for someone who did), particularly him testifying in character for most of the time. But, it is not like he was the only one there, and he did in fact spend time with migrant farm workers. And, the quote above suggests (as does various other accounts of his private life, including being a Sunday School teacher) Colbert has a serious side that supports public service.
In reasonable doses, this sort of thing is a way to promote important issues, as does his interviews weekly that provide diverse material to the public. [Update: Keith Olbermann had a good segment on this matter that agrees with me.]