Spoofing current events has long been a staple for late-night comedians. But The Late Show on CBS with liberal host Stephen Colbert uses "spoofing" to project all its hateful takes as "comedy." They took the practice to an extremely irritating level on Wednesday evening, predicting the Mueller report would be heavily redacted. That turned out to be....Fake News.
The video -- which was shown the night before the Mueller report was released -- didn’t take long to get to its point as a number of female newscasters were shown stating again and again that the document had been “redacted.”
Once that was finished, a woman narrator stated:
The Mueller report is about to be released, and [book-reading service] Audible has the exclusive audio book.
Listen to the report come alive as read by noted five-time Tony Award-winning actor Leslie Brickhill.
The video then turned to the actor theatrically reading into a microphone: “On June 9th, 2016, Donald Trump, Jr. -- the President’s son -- met with Kremlin lawyer Natasha Veselnitskaya at Trump Tower. Also in attendance were Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort. In exchange for Hillary Clinton’s emails, the Trump team agreed to -- .”
Suddenly, Gilbert Gottfried stood up into view and shouted: “Redacted, redacted, redacted!”
If the comedian’s creaky voice was intended to be annoying, it definitely accomplished that before the narrator announced his role in the clip was as “The Redaction.”
When Gottfried left via the bottom of the screen, Brickhill continued: “And they made plans to meet again in Prague.”
“In 2017, President Trump invited FBI Director James Comey into his office, where he demanded -- .”
The comic again interrupted the actor by rising up and yelling: “Reeeeedacted, redacted!”
To no one’s surprise, Brickhill continued: “A shaken Comey returned to his office. In 2018 -- .”
Again, Gottfried rose into the screen while screaming: “Give me a ‘re,’ give me a ‘dac,’ give me a ‘ted’ -- redacted!”
The narrator then stated that the audio was “available now for $9.95.”
And in case anyone hadn’t gotten the point of the video, Gottfried then came up into the screen and shrieked: “Reeeeeedacted!”
While Colbert didn’t actually take part in the skit, that spoof was obviously yet another attempt to vilify President Trump, as NewsBusters has often reported.
However, Laura Bradley, a Hollywood writer for Vanity Fair, quoted Colbert as saying:
I’m afraid to love again. I mean, I gave my whole heart to the idea it was coming out three weeks ago, and all I got was four pages and a mountain of heartache.
For Pete’s sake, I got more action at my eighth-grade dance!
The liberal host then referred to Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein as “a comedy duo” who, he sarcastically noted, “will undoubtedly blow the lid off Donald Trump’s corruption.”
Colbert then took out a carton of eggs and quipped: “Until then, I will pass the time counting my chickens, which I will safely place in one basket.”
However, when he tried to put the eggs in the other container, one of them accidentally fell onto the floor, a fitting reflection of the lack of talent in late-night network television these days.
