Has Everyone Suddenly Forgotten What Stephen Colbert Does?

Stephen Colbert, as I’m sure you all know, is a satirist. He portrays an over-the-top character four nights a week on Comedy Central that’s loosely based on human exhaust pipe Bill O’Reilly, aka “Papa Bear.” His show exists, to a large extent, to mock and ridicule Fox News and, to a lesser degree, other media outlets, personalities and politicians — mainly those of conservative stripe.

Now, as you may have heard, and I’ll try to explain this in layman’s terms, Colbert went to great lengths recently to form what’s known as a “SuperPAC” — a quite real way to pour money behind political candidates and/or political causes. Of course, in doing so, Colbert no doubt intends to use his SuperPAC to, well, mock politicians, SuperPACs themselves and the increasing influence of money in American politics. (Critics claim that SuperPACs provide a vehicle for big corporations, mega-rich folk, and foreign entities to secretly dump huge sums of money into our political system. Coincidentally, Mitt Romney is currently catching heat for a mysterious $1 million donation he recently took in via a SuperPAC.)

So last night on his show, Colbert announced that he’d be using his SuperPAC, the Colbert SuperPAC (which you can donate to here.), to “support” the presidential campaign of creepy used car salesman-esque Texas Governor Rick Perry, up to and including running a commercial in “support” of Perry in Iowa tomorrow night. Now, Rick Perry, in case you don’t know, has been compared endlessly to George W. Bush. There’s the obvious Texas governor similarity, along with the fact that both were male cheerleaders in college with painfully average academic records. But Rick Perry, frankly, is a cartoon character. This is a guy who carries a loaded gun on him when he goes jogging. He’s also the guy who held a prayer rally in a football stadium over the weekend to ask God to make all of America’s problems go away. In other words, Rick Perry is the Incredible Hulk to George W. Bush’s David Banner.

Now, I tell you all this because every media outlet I’ve seen report about Colbert announcing his SuperPAC’s “support” for Perry has done so in a serious, non-ironic way. Gawker’s headline was, “Stephen Colbert Really Wants to Get Rick Perry Elected President.” Talking Points Memo’s headline read, “Colbert Throws His Super PAC’s Support Behind Texas Gov. Rick Perry.” And so on. There were others I saw, but I think you get the idea.

But do you think that Colbert is actually going to use his SuperPAC money to help Rick Perry? Of course not! Quite the opposite, he’s going to use that money to try to subversively destroy Rick Perry because Colbert thinks he’s a staggering jackass. And it’ll probably be brilliant and glorious. So basically what I’m trying to say here is… DUH!

Anyway, here’s the clip of Colbert’s announcement on his show last night. I’m dying, DYING, to see his Rick Perry commercial.