MR. COLBERT: Marriage is the basic building block of society. And if gay men get married, that threatens my marriage immediately because I only got married as a taunt toward gay men because they couldn’t.

MR. RUSSERT: So it makes you feel insecure.

MR. COLBERT: Well, I just don’t know else—why I got married other than to rub it in gay people’s faces.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you consider Senator Larry Craig as your running mate?

MR. COLBERT: I would.

MR. RUSSERT: Have you had conversations with him?

MR. COLBERT: Define conversation.

MR. RUSSERT: Have you spoken to him?

MR. COLBERT: No, no.

MR. RUSSERT: Have you met with him? Have you been in the same room together?

MR. COLBERT: Yes. And my...

MR. RUSSERT: And how...

MR. COLBERT: Sorry, my lawyer’s telling me to say no more.

MR. RUSSERT: How did you express your interest in developing your relationship?

MR. COLBERT: Forcefully.

MR. RUSSERT: Vanity Fair...

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...wrote this...

MR. COLBERT: The fine news magazine.

MR. RUSSERT: This is what they said: “Unlike many of his friends, Colbert did not return to Charleston,” South Carolina, “after graduation,” from Northwestern, I might add, “instead staying in Chicago. He cut a distinctly un-southern look: he wore black turtlenecks, had what he describes as a ‘Jesus beard,’ and grew his hair out.” Now, NBC News MEET THE PRESS...

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...has researched this.

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm. Oh, I know all about your researchers.

MR. RUSSERT: Take a look at this picture. That is you!

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you deny it?

MR. COLBERT: I, I don’t deny it. What good would it do me?

MR. RUSSERT: All right. Do...

MR. COLBERT: I—my time away, my time away...

MR. RUSSERT: Do you, do you know, do you know, do you know a gentleman named Chip Hill?

MR. COLBERT: My time away from the South—I’m familiar with Mr. Hill.

MR. RUSSERT: You’ve known him 30 years.

MR. COLBERT: I have, yeah.

MR. RUSSERT: He’s godfather to your child.

MR. COLBERT: Yes, he is.

MR. RUSSERT: This is what Mr. Hill had to say: “When he was growing up, Colbert, according to Chip Hill, used to joke about how he ‘wanted to major in mass psychology and start a cult.’”

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: I want to see that picture again. That’s a cult leader.

MR. COLBERT: Look, I don’t deny that my time away from the South has been a time in the desert for me, and...

MR. RUSSERT: Do you have Manson tendencies?

MR. COLBERT: Inclinations is as strong as I would go. I don’t actually have a group of people who, who I can snap my fingers and have them attack people.

MR. RUSSERT: But you would like to be a cult leader?

MR. COLBERT: I, I did, at the time, want to be a cult leader. I find that being a TV pundit is, is much more powerful, and you have to be less reliable.

MR. RUSSERT: But would being president be, in your mind, a cult leader?

MR. COLBERT: I don’t want to be president. I want to run for president. There’s a difference. I’m running in South Carolina.

MR. RUSSERT: You’d like to lose?

MR. COLBERT: Hm, I’d like to lose twice. I’d like to lose as both a Republican and a Democrat.

MR. RUSSERT: And what statement would that make?

MR. COLBERT: I think that statement would make that I was able to get on the ballot in South Carolina. And if I can do it, so can you.

MR. RUSSERT: In your office in New York City...

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...you have a large...

MR. COLBERT: You’ve been in my office.

MR. RUSSERT: ...a large poster of a president, don’t you?

MR. COLBERT: Richard Nixon.

MR. RUSSERT: Yes, indeed.

MR. COLBERT: 1972. Now more than ever.

MR. RUSSERT: Now, let me show you and our viewers what you said about that. And “Here’s something Colbertophiles might not know or might not want to know: He loves Richard Nixon. He has a 1972 Nixon campaign poster on the wall of his office. He points at it and says, ‘He was so liberal! Look at what he was running on. He started the EPA. He gave 18-year-olds the vote. His issues were education, drugs, women, minorities, youth involvement, ending the draft, and improving the environment. John Kerry couldn’t have run on this!” What I would give for a Nixon.

MR. COLBERT: It’d be great. It’d be great.

MR. RUSSERT: You, you love Richard Nixon.

MR. COLBERT: I have great warm feelings for Richard Nixon. He was the first president that I was aware of, and I was a little upset with him because, when I would come home in the afternoons from school, instead of “The Munsters” or “The Three Stooges” on TV, it was Senator Sam Urban. And while his eyebrows were hilarious, they weren’t quite as good as Herman Munster.

MR. RUSSERT: Would you be Nixonian in your approach to the presidency?

MR. COLBERT: I’d be Nixonish or Nixonoid. Is that like being Nixonian? Define Nixonian. Powerful?

MR. RUSSERT: (Unintelligible)

MR. COLBERT: Paranoid? Fun-loving and gay? Absolutely.

MR. RUSSERT: Is this a self-analysis?

MR. COLBERT: No, I don’t put myself on the couch.

MR. RUSSERT: But you are Nixonian.

MR. COLBERT: If you say so.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you just did.

MR. COLBERT: Again, if you say so. I don’t even listen to what I say.

MR. RUSSERT: Richard Nixon had a very difficult relationship with the media, as you well know.

MR. COLBERT: I have a very difficult relationship with the media.

MR. RUSSERT: That’s my point.

MR. COLBERT: Because I’m a member of the media, and I don’t trust us.

MR. RUSSERT: You don’t, you don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore. Do you remember that?

MR. COLBERT: I do.

MR. RUSSERT: And I remember the White House correspondents? dinner, April of 2006.

MR. COLBERT: I blacked out for most of that, but go ahead.

MR. RUSSERT: Stephen Colbert...

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...at the presidential podium, the seal in front of him...

MR. COLBERT: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...and this is what he said to the Washington Press Corps. Let’s watch.

(Videotape)

CONTINUED

< Prev | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Next >

Discuss Story On Newsvine
Rate Story:
View popularLowHigh
Email
Instant Message
Print