According to this article, he doesn't look at the blogs much, though he does sometimes ask his wife to do so and give him a report. Good evening Mrs. Colbert, my you look lovely today. The article's only so-so; it's better for its Colbert quotes than for the intrusions by the author, Adam Sternbergh.
Sternbergh comes off as the kind of guy who tries to tell jokes but forgets punchlines and thinks a little, but not enough. How else do you explain his trying to descibe Colbert's trademark "Word" bits while leaving out the answer-back commentary captions that makes it funny?
Worse is his digression into a not-fully-thought-out equation of Colbert with Ann Coulter. I think I know what he was trying to say with that, but to my mind he didn't close the loop. Though I have thought about whether there is an equation for Colbert, not with Coulter but with Andrew Dice Clay.
Like Colbert, Clay became rich and famous saying hateful things. He always reacted to criticism of his act by hiding behind the notion that it was "just a character." Colbert, of course, makes similar claims about his on-air persona.
The difference is, Colbert always finds a way to signal from within that character, and without breaking it, what his true thoughts are. Also, he's genuinely funny, another thing that separates him from the Diceman.
Whose sole lasting contribution to our culture remains the "OH!" sample on "Unbelivable" by EMF.
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