Stephen Colbert

Since the summer I have been watching Stephen Colbert's TV show "The Colbert Report" on ifilm.com. For those who haven't seen it, it is a parody news programme similar(ish) to The Daily Show with John Stewart. On it, Stephen Colbert (in character)impersonates right wing news personalities like Bill O'Reilly. About a month ago on his show he announced that he would be running in the Presidential Nomination race for both the Democrat and Republican parties - but only in the state of South Carolina (where he's from). A couple weeks later, the Democrats announced they wouldn't be letting him run.

The reason I'm writing about him isn't because his show is so funny (which it is), but because as a result of his announcement, he started doing a lot of TV interviews in character. This brings me to my point: while on his TV show he has writers, the interview situations are off-the-cuff and I love his ability to improvise and keep a straight face. He never gets stuck!

Here is an interview that I really liked on a serious show called "Meet the Press". Even thought Stephen Colbert is in character, the interviewer tries to treat it like an interview with any other political candidate. Its so funny, check it out, there are 2 parts:

Part 1


Part 2

The Fog of War

This documentary is called: The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara

I saw this on tv a couple years ago and thought it was really interesting. It is basically a long interview with Robert McNamara who was the U.S. Secretary of Defense during Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War. These days a lot of the responsibility and blame for losing the vietnam war is placed on him. I guess this is a rare type of documentary because how often do you get such an indepth first hand account about such a major world event?

I haven't rewatched much of it yet but if I remember rightly, this documentary also has a really good musical score. If you have the time I hope you watch it and enjoy it.

Great quote from the documentary:

*On the fire-bombing of Japanese cities towards the end of WW2*
"[Airforce General Curtis] LeMay said if we'd lost the war, we'd all have been prosecuted as war criminals. And I think he's right! He, and I'd say, I, were behaving as war criminals.

LeMay recognised that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side had lost, but what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?" - McNamara