Stephen Colbert largely kept his liberal politics in check on the Late Show with Stephen Colbert on CBS, at least in the Tuesday night debut, not producing the highly political program conservatives feared would emerge after Colbert rid himself of the conservative buffoon act he offered on Comedy Central.
Overall, a much sillier and artificial program than David Letterman’s old show.
In the opening monologue, he relayed just one political joke, tied to upcoming guest Jeb Bush: “Governor Bush was governor of Florida for eight years, and you’d think that much exposure to oranges and crazy people would have prepared him for Donald Trump.”
After the first ad break, he announced: “Even though I have Jeb Bush on the show tonight, I promise you that, just like the rest of the media, I will be covering all of the presidential candidates, who are,” pause, “Donald Trump.”
Indeed, he proceeded to then deliver six and a half minutes of riffs on Donald Trump, pivoting off Trump promising to stop eating oreo cookies. But it was all light-hearted, playing off of Trump clips from the last few weeks, with no serious political criticism of Trump or the now standard condescending liberal charges that Trump is a hater or racist.
One candidate, however, never targeted during the hour-plus show: Hillary Clinton, despite plenty of developments on her front to tackle. Maybe that will come in his second show on Wednesday night. (“Clinton” was only uttered once, when Colbert reminded Bush “your mom said maybe we shouldn’t have another Bush or another Clinton in the White House.”)
[UPDATE, Sept. 10: On his second night, Wednesday, Sept. 9, Colbert cracked one joke about Hillary Clinton. Video of it via my Twitter feed.]
[UPDATE, Sept. 11: On the Thursday, September 10 Late Show, Colbert cited Thomas Jefferson in imploring guest Joe Biden to join the presidential race. Video via my Twitter feed.]
The sit-down with George Clooney was free of politics and when second guest Bush remarked of the inside of the Ed Sullivan Theater, “you have more pictures of yourself than I thought you would have,” Colbert described his transition: “There are a lot of pictures of me in here. I used to play a narcissistic conservative pundit, now I’m just a narcissist.”
He next cued up Bush: “Could you take a moment here to tell the American people why you want to be President of the United States.”
His toughest political question for Bush: “Without in any way diminishing your love for your brother, in what ways do you politically differ from your brother George?”
That’s a lot easier than David Letterman would have gone on any Bush.
