Aspen – The Mile High City is the perfect venue for the 2008 Democratic National Convention, according to Comedy Central “political pundit” Stephen Colbert.
“It’s a mile high and they are pro pot,” Colbert said following his acceptance of the Person of the Year award at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen on Friday night.
“Willie Nelson can be master of ceremonies,” he added.
Colbert joked about the fact that he has become a political force with his show – “The Colbert Report” – where he skewers guests by playing the part of a megalomaniac, “willfully uninformed,” right-wing pundit who believes “he who shouts the loudest is the rightest.”
A parade of politicians has appeared on it and become the butt of his satirical interviews. And they keep coming. Colbert said he is booked with politicos through summer.
Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, in a taped tribute, said Colbert has “an unnerving eye for the absurdity of politics.”
The new Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, sent a message to Democratic politicians warning them not to appear on his show, Colbert said.
“She said, ‘Nobody talks to Colbert from September through the election,”‘ Colbert told a packed house in the ballroom of Aspen’s St. Regis Hotel.
He spoke under a huge gilt-framed portrait of himself bearing the motto “Not You. Me.”
Top Republicans have also warned against sitting down with Colbert since his infamous skewering of President Bush during the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner last summer.
Colbert also revealed U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, a Georgia Republican, in an on-air interview as being unable to list the Ten Commandments. Westmoreland was co-sponsor of a bill that would mandate display of the Ten Commandments in the House and Senate.
Colbert said that when his show began in 2005, no politicians could be persuaded to appear until he began a segment called “Better Know a District.” Politicians who had not been heard of outside their home districts began appearing. Their better-known counterparts followed.
“Someone once said, ‘A politician is to a microphone as a dog is to a fire hydrant,”‘ noted CNN senior political analyst Jeff Greenfield, who interviewed Colbert during his festival appearance.
Dressed in jeans and a sweater rather than his button-down Colbert Report attire, Colbert explained how he had created that “high-status moron” persona – a character based on “All in the Family” curmudgeon Archie Bunker, conservative talk- show host Bill O’Reilly and other talking heads who “actually have to believe that jabber (that) comes out of their mouths means something and it’s helping America.”
Staff writer Nancy Lofholm can be reached at 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com.
