Stephen Colbert defended Rick Perry‘s disastrous debate performance on Tuesday’s Colbert Report, saying “a president does not need to be articulate. He’s not the convincer-in-chief, he’s the commander-in-chief. And by ‘command’ I don’t mean of the English language.” While Colbert acknowledged that Perry “defiled himself with every bodily fluid known to man other than santorum“, [...]

Why won’t government regulators leave corporations alone, Stephen Colbert wondered during last night’s episode of The Colbert Report. Why shouldn’t Product-American’s be afforded the same rights as the rest of us? ”The First Amendment protects not only speech you like, but speech you don’t like,” he reminds. “Therefore government regulators must not persecute products just because they don’t fit some beurocrats narrow definition of ‘fireproof’ or ‘potable.’”

Who: Eric Stangel (Letterman), Justin Stangel (Letterman), A.D. Miles (Fallon), Steve Bodow (Daily Show), Barry Julien (Colbert), moderated by Jason Sudeikis (SNL)
What: The New York Television Festival’s “Long Day’s Journey into Late Night”
Where: 92 Y Tribeca
When: September 22, 2011
Thumbs: Up

Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert are going through somewhat of a messy break-up. After declaring themselves “Best Friends for Six Months,” they came to the sad realization this week that those six months had passed. Last night, Colbert appeared on Late Night after he and Fallon had a “falling out” on the Colbert Report that resulted in a fantastic duet of the romance classic “Somewhere Out There.”

Stephen Colbert had some fun at Tim Pawlenty‘s expense on Monday’s Colbert Report, calling the Minnesota Governor’s endorsement of Mitt Romney “like Miracle Whip endorsing Mayonnaise.”

Any Stephen Colbert clip that includes the line, “the fat cats in Des Moines think they can sit in their ivory corn silos and play puppet master with our national politics” is deserving of our undying support and enthusiasm. And so it is with Colbert’s (what’s a new way to say “epic rant”?) funny bit about a Des Moines TV station that declined to run the campaign spots produced by Colbert’s political action committee.

A Heritage Foundation recently published a report was remarkably critical of “poor” Americans who own refrigerators, microwaves and ceiling fans. Last night, Stephen Colbert both celebrated and ridiculed (celebraculed?) the conservative think tank report and Fox Business Network’s Stuart Varney for amplifying its seemingly insensitive position. Or as Colbert puts it, “if you have the strength to brush the flies off their eyeballs, then you really aren’t poor.”

Jose Antonio Vargas, the reporter who made news recently after admitting he has been in the U.S. illegally since childhood, paid a visit to The Colbert Report last night.

Vargas and host Stephen Colbert presently entered into a discussion on whether to refer to Vargas as “an illegal” or as “undocumented.” “You are what we in The America World call ‘illegal’,” said Colbert, high five-ing a bald eagle wearing wraparound sunglasses.

Nowadays, Stephen Colbert is a larger than life conservative caricature that releases rock albums, interviews legendary filmmakers, and sets ups super PACs. But back before Stephen Colbert was Stephen Colbert, Stephen Colbert was mid-aughts Bill O’Reilly. And after years of nightly adoration for “Papa Bear,” Colbert finally made it onto the show that provided the template for his post-Daily Show commentary program.

“I missed it so much,” newly-crowned Current TV executive Keith Olbermann told a pants-less Stephen Colbert in his return to television tonight in anticipation of the new Countdown. Colbert spent the interview relentlessly mocking Olbermann for his follies at MSNBC, calling him “insane,” and insisting he admit that he “lost to Bill O’Reilly.” Olbermann, of course, did nothing of the sort.

“I don’t usually have guests this deep,” Stephen Colbert admitted halfway through last night’s interview with German film legend Werner Herzog. Herzog, known for, among other things, eating his own shoe and trying to firebomb an actor’s house, provided Colbert with one of the most bizarre and unmanageable interviews in the history of the Report, calling thousands-old cave paintings “beyond than Baywatch” and philosophizing about radioactive albino crocodiles.

Newt Gingrich had a bad week. Luckily, he hired fully-trained epic poets to write his press releases, which resulted in something of a penned by political bard/spokesman Rick Tyler. While many tried to fully capture the loftiness of Tyler’s press release explaining how the “right-wing social engineering” snafu was actually the product of left-wing media jiu-jitsu, Stephen Colbert didn’t take a chance on it: he asked Emmy- and Tony award-winning actor John Lithgow to give it a dramatic reading.

Actor James Franco is a man of many talents. The Academy Award nominated actor and Oscar host has a well-documented and varied set of talents, interests and jobs; So much so that it’s not unfair to label him somewhat of a “Renaissance man.” This is upsetting to another media personality who also considers himself a “Renaissance man,” Stephen Colbert, who confronted Franco (or his twin brother Frank Jameso?) in a hilarious bit last night on The Colbert Report. Enjoy.

It is no secret that whenever Stephen Colbert claims to a “big fan” of somebody, he’s setting himself up to absolutely rail on his target. In these instances, Colbert is like a giant truck, backing up to unload an enormous heap of scorn, though pleasantly delivered with his uniquely detached irony and absurdly amplified delivery. Take for example last night’s episode in which Colbert focused on Glenn Beck, and recent news that he might be on his way out at Fox News. Or as Colbert calls it, the looming “Glennpocalypse!”

There’s been a consistent theme emerging from nattering nabobs of negativity over the Libyan air strikes: the U.S. military mission seems at best to be a confused one. There are many good reasons to either support or oppose the U.S. intervention in Libya, but its not unreasonable to expect our military forces to have a clear definition of the task at hand before going in. So one might expect something more cogent from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen during his weekend appearance on Meet the Press with David Gregory. Turns out? Not so much. Enter Stephen Colbert for what seems appropriate derision.

In advance of what is looking more an more like a presidential run in 2012, Newt Gingrich recently raised some eyebrows with his interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody in which he explained his past indiscretions (marital infidelities) by blaming his love for this country. Yes, the meme that sprang from this was that Gingrich cheated on his wives because of his patriotism. Or, as Stephen Colbert put it last night, Gingrich “really just wanted to screw America.”

Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner visited Stephen Colbert last night and appeared much more relaxed than he did in some of his recent Fox News appearances. Colbert played a few clips of Weiner trying to argue issues with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and Megyn Kelly, but constantly getting interrupted and Colbert concluded, “what a jerk – Congressman Weiner, if you want to interrupt and belittle people, get your own show on Fox.”

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has recently come under political attack for not reporting his wife’s income and “dropping by” a secret corporate fundraiser. Last night Stephen Colbert “defended” the embattled Thomas, not just from alleged tax evasion, but also from charges that he was inappropriately paid for attending a conservative political retreat. “It wasn’t a bribe,” Colbert chided, “it was a reward!” He then proceeded to call the taciturn Thomas up on the phone.

Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert has jumped on the online news aggregation bandwagon with the launch of his new site, “The Colbuffington Post.”

On his “Tip of the Hat / Wag of the Finger” segment last night, Colbert explained that The Huffington Post is worth every penny of the $315 million Aol shelled out for it, but noted that a good portion of HuffPo’s coverage deals with none other than Stephen Colbert, placing him in the unique situation of growing angry while looking at pictures and videos of himself. Why, then, shouldn’t Colbert get a cut of HuffPo’s sweet, sweet Aol money?

There were over 200,000 people at yesterday’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, and a whole lot of them had signs. Tommy Christopher covered the beat from the perspective of someone who arrived earlier and was much closer to the front; I covered the late-to-the-party-gee-it’s-crowded-can-you-hear-anything?-they-clearly-weren’t-expecting-this-many-people shift, who came equally bedecked and be-placarded, because apparently that’s how you take your country back. There were bears, puns, twins, Hitler mustaches but ironic Hitler mustaches,

After a very long day of singing, video montages, paper maché effigies, and plenty of fear and/or sanity, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert met the press for one last time as the ringleaders of their joint rally to answer questions on crowd organization, their core message, and the surprising supporting character of the event, Rick Sanchez.

One of the great things about centering a show around a character as ridiculous as “Stephen Colbert,” is that the Colbert Report can get away with doing absolutely anything. One of the great things about centering a show around a host as ridiculously talented at Stephen Colbert, is that the Colbert Report can get away with doing absolutely anything. Case in point; last night, Colbert explained the whole mosque-building/Koran-burning détente we’ve now seemed to have reached by doing an extended (more than two minutes long!) bit impersonating Peter Sellers’ titular character from the classic Dr. Strangelove.

Last night Vice President Joe Biden appeared on The Colbert Report, and when he wasn’t making a surprise turn fulfilling his Constitutional duties serving hot dogs to the U.S. troops in the audience, he was interviewed by host Stephen Colbert. When asked how he felt about the previous administration, Biden gracefully gave credit to the President Bush for consistently honoring the troops.

Tonight, Stephen Colbert saluted the troops that were so hospitable to him last June by inviting them to a military-only taping of The Colbert Report. But that’s not all: to offer them something they couldn’t get while they were deployed, he offered them all free beers and hotdogs — hot dogs delivered by Vice President Joe Biden.

MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan was a guest on The Colbert Report – a show where the character Stephen Colbert plays despises MSNBC but probably agrees with a lot of Ratigan’s more libertarian points of view.

But the most interesting exchange came as Colbert pressed Ratigan on his previous hosting gig – at CNBC’s Fast Money, particularly before the 2008 collapse.