Stephen Colbert interviewed George Stephanopoulos last night, and in between needling George about cooking segments as a path to the evening news anchor chair, he put in a good word for Jake Tapper as the next host of “This Week.”

Colbert isn’t the only fundit® to weigh in on the subject recently. Seth Meyers, anchor of the resurgent SNL Weekend Update, also lent his support to the tenacious White House reporter. Whether ABC News taps Tapper or not, though, it’s about time they make up their minds.

On today’s “This Week” roundtable, The Nation editor Katrina Vanden Heuvel invoked the term “tea-bagger,” prompting a disgusted protest from Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson. Vanden Heuvel’s response was to plow through Carlson’s objections, a strategy which, no doubt, delighted liberals and infuriated conservatives. The term “tea-bagger” has become a gargantuan red herring, almost a “red spermwhale,” if you will.

Jake Tapper, hosting ABC’s This Week today, tossed off a neat zinger at Daily Caller impresario Tucker Carlson that might land him in hot water with some conservative viewers. During a segment in which they graded the president, Tapper turned to Carlson and said, “I feel like I’m going to the Russian judge in the Olympics.”

The past two weeks have provided an opportunity to compare the performance of a pair of leading candidates to succeed George Stephanopoulos as the host of ABC’s This Week. By one measure, at least, White House correspondent Jake Tapper has emerged with an advantage over Nightline co-anchor Terry Moran, drawing 60,000 more viewers. That might seem slim, but a closer look at the numbers indicates that ABC might want to consider moving in Tapper’s direction.

George Stephanopoulos‘ move to Good Morning America has left open the plum assignment of Sunday morning talk-show host. The This Week gig is not just a big break for the eventual host, but a real opportunity for ABC News to break NBC’s ratings stranglehold on Sunday mornings.

On a very short list of rumored Stephanopoulos replacements sits ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Jake Tapper.