Political Irony

Stephen Colbert takes on the winners of the Iowa caucuses:

And satirist Andy Borowitz gets in some funny cracks:

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was overjoyed today after finishing the Iowa caucuses in a virtual tie with a walking joke who wears sweater vests.

“The eight people have spoken!” exclaimed Mr. Romney, who was joined by supporters celebrating his .0006% margin of victory.

Historians noted that the last time so few people decided a Presidential race they were all on the Supreme Court.

As for the other candidates, runner-up Rick Santorum said that he had received a phone call from President Obama: “He stopped laughing just long enough to say congratulations.”

Speaking of Colbert, there is a really interesting article in the New York Times Magazine on how Colbert has grown a new personality by taking his existing fictional idiot conservative personality — the one who stars on the Colbert Report — and moving it out into the real world and dangerously close to reality. Colbert briefly ran for president in 2008, and testified (in character) before Congress. But that was just a warm-up for what he is doing now, which is destroying the line between reality and parody.

In addition to starting his own (real) Super PAC “Americans For A Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow”, he ran political commercials in Iowa urging people to write in Rick Perry’s name, but to misspell it with an “a” (for America). He also started a 501(c)(4) “Colbert Super PAC SHH Institute” to “launder” political donations (the SHH is like “hush”). And in October, Colbert almost succeeded in paying the Republican Party in South Carolina for naming rights for the presidential primary, rebranding it “The Stephen Colbert Super PAC South Carolina Primary” (even on the ballots).