NEW YORK — Stephen Colbert took a slug from his drink glass before his first monologue after President disastrous performance during his debate with . This was going to be hard. But then the CBS “Late Show” host dove right into jokes that were impossible for any political satirist to resist.
“I think that debates as well as Abraham Lincoln - if you dug him up right now,” Colbert said this week. He had company. , and have all found fodder in stumbling, slack-jawed performance and in the Democrats’ internal debate over whether the president should drop his campaign for a second term.
Late-night comics have skewered Biden’s Republican opponent, , for years. Some have made no secret that their feelings were not just professional: Colbert moderated a panel discussion between and former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton at a Manhattan fundraiser in March, and ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel held court at a Biden Hollywood event last month. Yet to think they would have ignored troubles was naive, says , a scholar of TV and its history.
“The idea that late-night comedy has been another mouthpiece for the Democratic party is simply not true, because comedy cannot afford to do that,” said , director of Syracuse University’s Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture. “The job is that you’ve got to make fun of the people in power.” Although hosted a live version of “ ” on Comedy Central immediately following the June 27 debate, most of the comedic respons.
