Now that Stephen Colbert has officially become a “comedian” for the state, protecting Joe Biden, he has to turn elsewhere for jokes. Apparently, the show's new targets are America’s Founding Fathers, people that the Late Show on Wednesday slimed as “douche nozzles.”
Talking about the Biden administration's plans to accelerate the process of replacing Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, the CBS host said of George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson, "So it looks like Tubman is on her way to the 20. That's pretty great, right?
Show writer John Thibodeaux replied, "It's nice to be on the money, but we want to have the money. Recognition is nice. Reparations are better. Plus, she won't exactly be in the best company. You know who else is on those bills?"
Colbert then listed a number of Founding Fathers who appear on paper currency, starting with Washington. Thibodeaux reduced the man who would not be king, who kept the young republic together in its early days, and commander-in-chief of the Continental Army to a "slave owner."
What about Hamilton, Colbert wondered. Again, Thibodeaux reduced the Revolutionary War hero, co-writer of The Federalist Papers, and father of the modern economy to a "slave-buyer," never mind that Hamilton's relationship with slavery is hotly debated among scholars and biographers.
And what about Jefferson, the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence? According to Thibodeaux, he is just a "Big-time slave owner. Hall of fame. The Babe Ruth of slave owners, if Babe Ruth had sex with his home runs."
Colbert then conceded Thibodeaux's point, "Okay, that does sound bad." To which Thibodeaux replied:
Harriet Tubman was a black woman abolitionist, at a time when it was life-threatening thing to be any of those things, let all of them. She repeatedly risked her life for other people's freedom and now we're asking her to hang out with those douche-nozzles? She needs a squad! I'm talking Frederick Douglass on the one, Rosa Parks on the five, W.E.B Dubois on the hundo.
Apparently we're also throwing Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist Benjamin Franklin off their bills as well? No one has ever denied that the Founders were imperfect men who had their contradictions, but they did more to advance the cause of liberty by putting their lives on the line than two "comedians" deriding them as "douche-nozzles" well over 200 years later on a talk show could ever dream of.
This segment was sponsored by E-Trade.
Here is a transcript for the February 3 show:
CBS
The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
11:59 PM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: Hi, John. Always good to see you. So it looks like Tubman is on
her way to the 20. That's pretty great, right?
JOHN THIBODEAUX: It's nice to be on the money, but we want to have the money. Recognition is nice. Reparations are better. Plus, she won't exactly be in the best company. You know who else is on those bills?
COLBERT: Yeah. I mean, I've handled money in the past. You've got George Washington.
THIBODEAUX: Slave owner.
COLBERT: That’s true. Alexander Hamilton?
THIBODEAUX: Slave-buyer.COLBERT: Okay. Thomas Jefferson?
THIBODEAUX: Big-time slave owner. Hall of fame. The Babe Ruth of slave owners, if Babe Ruth had sex with his home runs.
COLBERT: Okay, that does sound bad.
THIBODEAUX: Harriet Tubman was a black woman abolitionist, at a time when it was life-threatening thing to be any of those things, let all of them. She repeatedly risked her life for other people's freedom and now we're asking her to hang out with those douche nozzles? She needs a squad! I'm talking Frederick Douglass on the one, Rosa Parks on the 5, W.E.B Dubois on the hundo, and Prince on the... this.
COLBERT: How much is that one worth?
THIBODEAUX: Why do you have to put the value of Prince's
currency in a box, Stephen? Let's just say it can buy a raspberry beret or a little red corvette.
COLBERT: That's versatile.
