Tapper at the White House on July 22, 2009.

Jacob Paul "Jake" Tapper (born March 12, 1969) is an American print and television journalist, currently the senior White House correspondent for ABC News in Washington, D.C. He was named to that position the day after election day 2008, having covered then-senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

He last interviewed Obama in July 2009 in Moscow, in an interview where the president expressed confidence that his foreign policy approach was starting to work and said regarding the stimulus package, "there's nothing that we would have done differently."^[1] That January, Tapper had broken the story of the tax troubles of then-Health and Human Services secretary nominee and former Senate majority leader Tom Daschle (D-SD),^[2] troubles that ultimately derailed Daschle's nomination.

From March through July 2010, Tapper was interim anchor of ABC's This Week, hosting the program until Christiane Amanpour became This Week's anchor.

Life and career[link]

Tapper was born in New York City and was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Anne Tapper, retired as a psychiatric nurse at Philadelphia Veterans Administration Medical Center. His father, Theodore S. "Ted" Tapper, a Dartmouth graduate, was a president of South Philadelphia Pediatrics, a group medical practice, and is an associate clinical professor of pediatrics at Jefferson Medical College, both in Philadelphia.^[3]

He attended Akiba Hebrew Academy and graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Dartmouth College in 1991 with a B.A. in history modified by visual studies. He briefly attended graduate school at the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television.^[4]

In 1992, Tapper was a campaign press secretary for Democratic congressional candidate Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky (PA-13) and later served as her congressional press secretary. ^[5]Tapper worked in public relations for Powell Tate, a Washington, D.C., public affairs firm run by Democrat Jody Powell and Republican Sheila Tate. He also worked briefly for Handgun Control Inc. (now the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence) in 1997. After writing many freelance stories, Tapper began his journalism career full time as a senior writer for the Washington City Paper from 1998 to 1999 and wrote about his experience going on a date with Monica Lewinsky in 1998 for that publication,^[6] in a story that skewered Washington's culture of scandal. He was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com from 1999 to 2002, where he was an early questioner of the Bush administration's claims, building upon prior claims made the Clinton administration, about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction.^[7] He has also contributed to GQ, The Weekly Standard, NPR's All Things Considered, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. In 2001 he hosted a TV show on CNN called Take Five in which young journalists and commentators discussed politics and pop culture. In 2002 he hosted a series of entertainment news specials on VH1 and in 2003 he hosted shows focused on independent film on the Sundance Channel. ABC News hired him in 2003. Tapper has been a frequent guest on the Imus in the Morning radio program.

He is the author of the books Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency on the 2000 Presidential election and Body Slam: The Jesse Ventura Story.

His comic strip Capitol Hell appeared in Roll Call from 1994 to 2003. He has also contributed cartoons to the American Spectator magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and The Philadelphia Inquirer. In 2006, he married Jennifer Marie Brown of St. Joseph, Missouri, who was a regional field manager in Washington, D.C. for Planned Parenthood Federation.

On July 6, 2009, former MSNBC television personality Dan Abrams launched a website service, Mediaite, reporting on media figures. The site ranks all TV-based journalists in America by influence. Tapper ranks, as of December 2010, at number one.^[8]

Tapper was considered one of the leading candidates to replace George Stephanopoulos as anchor of This Week. Stephanopoulos took over for Diane Sawyer, co-host of Good Morning America, when she assumed the role as anchor of World News.^[9] However, CNN's Christiane Amanpour was selected instead. Tapper served as the interim anchor until Amanpour took over the show on August 1, 2010.^[10]

Tapper has also appeared on the Judge John Hodgman podcast as guest bailiff, standing in for regular bailiff Jesse Thorn during the August 31, 2011 episode entitled "De Plane".

Personal Life[link]

Jake lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife, Jennifer and two children. The Tappers were married in 2006 in Jennifer's home state of Missouri.

References[link]

External links[link]

• ABC News biography
• Jake Tapper's blog -- Political Punch
• Jake Tapper on Twitter
• Jake Tapper's personal website -- lots of links to past stories from before ABC News
• Jake Tapper's Salon.com archives

Stephen Colbert
Stephen Colbert at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in 2010
Birth name	Stephen Tyrone Colbert[1]
Born	(1964-05-13) May 13, 1964 (age 48) Washington, D.C., United States
Medium	Theatre, television, film, books
Nationality	American
Years active	1984–present
Genres	Sketch comedy, news satire, improvisational comedy, character comedy, political satire, observational comedy, blue comedy
Subject(s)	American culture, American politics, American conservatism, The Christian Right, political punditry, popular culture, current events, mass media/news media, egomania, xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, sexuality
Influences	Don Novello, Bill Cosby,[2] George Carlin,[3] Dean Martin,[4] Jon Stewart,[5] Steve Martin[6] Bill O'Reilly[7]
Influenced	Rob Corddry,[8] Ed Helms,[8] Aasif Mandvi[9]
Spouse	Evelyn McGee-Colbert (3 children)
Notable works and roles	Chuck Noblet in Strangers with Candy Stephen Colbert in The Daily Show and The Colbert Report Writer, I Am America (And So Can You!) Co-writer, America (The Book) Phil Ken Sebben and Myron Reducto in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law Professor Richard Impossible in The Venture Bros.
Signature
Website	ColbertNation.com
Emmy Awards
Outstanding Writing for a Variety, Music or Comedy Program 2004, 2005, 2006 The Daily Show 2008 The Colbert Report 2010 The Colbert Report
Grammy Awards
Best Comedy Album 2010 A Colbert Christmas: The Greatest Gift of All!

Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( /koʊlˈbɛər/ or /ˈkoʊlbərt/;^[5] born May 13, 1964) is an American political satirist, writer, comedian, television host, and actor. He is the host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, a satirical news show in which Colbert portrays a caricatured version of conservative political pundits.

Colbert originally studied to be an actor, but became interested in improvisational theatre when he met famed Second City director Del Close while attending Northwestern University. He first performed professionally as an understudy for Steve Carell at Second City Chicago; among his troupe mates were comedians Paul Dinello and Amy Sedaris, with whom he developed the critically acclaimed sketch comedy series Exit 57.

Colbert also wrote and performed on the short-lived Dana Carvey Show before collaborating with Sedaris and Dinello again on the cult television series Strangers with Candy. He gained considerable attention for his role on the latter as closeted gay history teacher Chuck Noblet. It was his work as a correspondent on Comedy Central's news-parody series The Daily Show, however, that first introduced him to a wide audience.

In 2005, he left The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to host a spin-off series, The Colbert Report. Following The Daily Show's news-parody concept, The Colbert Report is a parody of personality-driven political opinion shows such as The O'Reilly Factor. Since its debut, the series has established itself as one of Comedy Central's highest-rated series, earning Colbert three Emmy Award nominations and an invitation to perform as featured entertainer at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner in 2006. Colbert was named one of Time's 100 most influential people in 2006.^[10] His book I Am America (And So Can You!) was No. 1 on The New York Times Best Seller list.

Early life[link]

Colbert was born in Washington, D.C.^[11] and grew up in Charleston, South Carolina, on James Island, the youngest of 11 children in an Irish Catholic family.^[5][12][13] Colbert and his siblings, in order from oldest to youngest, are James ("Jimmy"), Edward ("Eddie"), Mary, William ("Billy"), Margo, Thomas ("Tommy"), Jay, Elizabeth ("Lulu"), Paul, Peter, and Stephen.

Many of his ancestors immigrated to North America from Ireland in the 1800s before and during the Great Famine.^[14][15]

His father, James William Colbert, Jr., was the vice president for academic affairs at the Medical University of South Carolina. His mother, Lorna Colbert (née Tuck), was a homemaker.^[14][16] In interviews, Colbert describes his parents as devout people who also strongly value intellectualism and taught their children that it was possible to question the Church and still be Catholic.^[17] The emphasis his family placed on intelligence and his observation of negative stereotypes of Southerners led Colbert to train himself to suppress his Southern accent while he was still quite young. As a child, he observed that Southerners were often depicted as being less intelligent than other characters on scripted television; to avoid that stereotype, he taught himself to imitate the speech of American news anchors.^[18][19]

Colbert sometimes comedically claims his surname is French, but his family is actually of Irish, English, and distant German descent.^[5][20] Originally, the name was pronounced /ˈkoʊlbərt/ in English; Stephen Colbert's father, James, wanted to pronounce the name /koʊlˈbɛər/, but maintained the /ˈkoʊlbərt/ pronunciation out of respect for his own father. However, James offered his children the option to pronounce the name whichever way they preferred.^[12] Stephen started using /koʊlˈbɛər/ later in life when he transferred to Northwestern University, taking advantage of the opportunity to reinvent himself in a new place where no one knew him.^[5] Stephen's brother Ed, an intellectual property attorney, retained /ˈkoʊlbərt/; this was shown in a February 12, 2009 appearance on The Colbert Report, when his youngest brother asked him, "/ˈkoʊlbərt/ or /koʊlˈbɛər/?" Ed responded "/ˈkoʊlbərt/", to which Stephen jokingly replied, "See you in Hell".^[21]

On September 11, 1974, when Colbert was ten years old, his father and two of his brothers, Peter and Paul, were killed in the crash of Eastern Air Lines Flight 212 while it was attempting to land in Charlotte, North Carolina. They were en route to enroll the two boys at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut.^[13][22] Shortly thereafter, Lorna Colbert relocated the family downtown to the more urban environment of East Bay Street in Charleston. By his own account, Colbert found the transition difficult and did not easily make new friends in his new neighborhood.^[12] Colbert later described himself during this time as detached, lacking a sense of importance regarding the things with which other children concerned themselves.^[19][23] He developed a love of science fiction and fantasy novels, especially the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, of which he remains an avid fan. During his adolescence, he also developed an intense interest in fantasy role-playing games, especially Dungeons & Dragons,^[23][24] a pastime which he later characterized as an early experience in acting and improvisation.^[4]

Colbert attended Charleston's Episcopal Porter-Gaud School, where he participated in several school plays and contributed to the school newspaper but, by his own assessment, was not highly motivated academically.^[23] During his time as a teenager, he also briefly fronted a Rolling Stones cover band.^[25] When he was younger, he had hoped to study marine biology, but surgery intended to repair a severely perforated eardrum caused him inner ear damage. The damage was severe enough that he was unable to pursue a career that would involve scuba diving. The damage also left him deaf in his right ear.^[12][26] For a while, he was uncertain whether he would attend college,^[27] but ultimately he applied and was accepted to Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, where a friend had also enrolled. There he continued to participate in plays while studying mainly philosophy;^[2][23] he found the curriculum rigorous but was more focused than he had been in high school and was able to apply himself to his studies. Despite the lack of a significant theater community at Hampden-Sydney, Colbert's interest in acting escalated during this time. After two years, he transferred to Northwestern University as a Theater Major to study performance, emboldened by the realization that he loved performing even when no one was coming to shows.^[23]

Early career in comedy[link]

Stephen Colbert and his wife Evelyn McGee-Colbert at the 2006 Time 100

While at Northwestern, Colbert studied with the intent of becoming a dramatic actor; mostly he performed in experimental plays and was uninterested in comedy. He began performing improvisation while in college, both in the campus improv team No Fun Mud Piranhas^[28] and at the Annoyance Theatre in Chicago as a part of Del Close's ImprovOlympic at a time when the project was focused on competitive, long form improvisation, rather than improvisational comedy. "I wasn't gonna do Second City", Colbert later recalled, "because those Annoyance people looked down on Second City because they thought it wasn't pure improv—there was a slightly snobby, mystical quality to the Annoyance people".^[4] After Colbert graduated in 1986, however, he was in need of a job, and a friend who was employed at Second City's box office offered him work answering phones and selling souvenirs.^[23] Colbert accepted, and discovered that Second City employees were entitled to take classes at their training center for free.^[4] Despite his earlier aversion to the comedy group, he signed up for improvisation classes, and enjoyed the experience greatly.

Shortly thereafter, he was hired to perform with Second City's touring company, initially as an understudy for Steve Carell. It was there he met Amy Sedaris and Paul Dinello, with whom he often collaborated later in his career. By their retelling, the three comedians did not get along at first—Dinello thought Colbert was uptight, pretentious and cold, while Colbert thought of Dinello as "an illiterate thug"^[29]—but the trio became close friends while touring together, discovering that they shared a similar comic sensibility.^[23]

When Sedaris and Dinello were offered the opportunity to create a television series for HBO Downtown Productions, Colbert left The Second City and relocated to New York in order to work with them on the sketch comedy show Exit 57.^[23] The series debuted on Comedy Central in 1995 and aired through 1996. Despite only lasting for 12 episodes, the show received favorable reviews^[30][31] and was nominated for five CableACE Awards in 1995, in categories including best writing, performance, and comedy series.^[32]

Following the cancellation of Exit 57, Colbert worked for six months as a cast member and writer on The Dana Carvey Show, alongside former Second City cast mate Steve Carell, as well as Robert Smigel, Charlie Kaufman, Louis C.K., and Dino Stamatopoulos, among others. The series, described by one reviewer as "kamikaze satire" in "borderline-questionable taste", had sponsors pull out after its first episode aired, and was canceled after seven episodes.^[33] Colbert then worked briefly as a freelance writer for Saturday Night Live with Robert Smigel. Smigel also brought his animated sketch The Ambiguously Gay Duo to SNL from The Dana Carvey Show; Colbert provided the voice of Ace on both series, opposite Steve Carell as Gary. Needing money, he also worked as a script consultant for VH1 and MTV, before taking a job filming humorous correspondent segments for Good Morning America.^[23] Only two of the segments he proposed were ever produced, and only one aired, but the job led his agent to refer him to The Daily Show's then-producer, Madeline Smithberg, who hired Colbert on a trial basis in 1997.^[34]

Television career[link]

[edit] Strangers with Candy

During the same time frame, Colbert worked again with Sedaris and Dinello to develop a new comedy series for Comedy Central, Strangers with Candy. Comedy Central picked up the series in 1998 after Colbert had already begun working on The Daily Show. As a result he accepted a reduced role, filming only around twenty Daily Show segments a year while he worked on the new series.^[23]

Strangers with Candy was conceived of as a parody of after school specials, following the life of Jerri Blank, a 46-year-old dropout who returns to finish high school after 32 years of life on the street. Most noted by critics for its use of offensive humor, it concluded each episode by delivering to the audience a skewed, politically incorrect moral lesson.^[35] Colbert served as a main writer alongside Sedaris and Dinello, as well as portraying Jerri's strict but uninformed history teacher, Chuck Noblet, seen throughout the series dispensing inaccurate information to his classes. Colbert has likened this to the character he played on The Daily Show and later The Colbert Report, claiming that he has a very specific niche in portraying "poorly informed, high-status idiot" characters.^[13] Another running joke throughout the series was that Noblet, a closeted homosexual, was having a "secret" affair with fellow teacher Geoffrey Jellineck despite the fact that their relationship was apparent to everyone around them. This obliviousness also appears in Colbert's Daily Show and Colbert Report character.

Thirty episodes of Strangers with Candy were made, which aired on Comedy Central in 1999 and 2000. Though its ratings were not remarkable during its initial run, it has been characterized as a cult show with a small but dedicated audience.^[36] Colbert reprised his role for a film adaptation, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2005 and had a limited release in 2006. The film received mixed reviews. Colbert also co-wrote the screenplay with Sedaris and Dinello.^[37]

[edit] The Daily Show

Stephen Colbert joined the cast of Comedy Central's parody-news series The Daily Show in 1997, when the show was in its second season. Originally one of four correspondents who filmed segments from remote locations in the style of network news field reporters, Colbert was referred to as "the new guy" on-air for his first two years on the show, during which time Craig Kilborn served as host. When Kilborn left the show prior to the 1999 season, Jon Stewart took over hosting duties, also serving as a writer and co-executive producer. From this point, the series gradually began to take on a more political tone and increase in popularity, particularly in the latter part of the 2000 U.S. presidential election season. The roles of the show's correspondents were expanded to include more in-studio segments, as well as international reports which were almost always done in the studio with the aid of a greenscreen.^[23]

Unlike Stewart, who essentially hosts The Daily Show as himself,^[38] Colbert developed a correspondent character for his pieces on the series. Colbert has described his correspondent character as "a fool who has spent a lot of his life playing not the fool — one who is able to cover it at least well enough to deal with the subjects that he deals with".^[23] Colbert was frequently pitted against knowledgeable interview subjects, or against Stewart in scripted exchanges, with the resultant dialogue demonstrating the character's lack of knowledge of whatever subject he is discussing.^[7][23] Colbert also made generous use of humorous fallacies of logic in explaining his point of view on any topic. Other Daily Show correspondents have adopted a similar style; former correspondent Rob Corddry recalls that when he and Ed Helms first joined the show's cast in 2002, they "just imitated Stephen Colbert for a year or two".^[8] Correspondent Aasif Mandvi has stated "I just decided I was going to do my best Stephen Colbert impression".^[9]

Colbert has appeared in several recurring segments for The Daily Show, including "Even Stevphen" with Steve Carell,^[39] in which both characters were expected to debate a selected topic but instead would unleash their anger at one another. Colbert commonly hosted "This Week in God", a report on topics in the news pertaining to religion, presented with the help of the "God Machine". Colbert filed reports from the floor of the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention as a part of The Daily Show's award-winning coverage of the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Presidential elections; many from the latter were included as part of their The Daily Show: Indecision 2004 DVD release. In several episodes of The Daily Show, Colbert filled in as anchor in the absence of Jon Stewart, including the full week of March 3, 2002, when Stewart was scheduled to host Saturday Night Live. After Colbert left the show, Rob Corddry took over "This Week in God" segments, although a recorded sample of Colbert's voice is still used as the sound effect for the God Machine. Later episodes of The Daily Show have reused older Colbert segments under the label "Klassic Kolbert". Colbert won three Emmys as a writer of The Daily Show in 2004, 2005, and 2006.^[40]

[edit] The Colbert Report

Since October 17, 2005, Colbert has hosted his own television show, The Colbert Report, a Daily Show spin-off which parodies the conventions of television news broadcasting,^[18] particularly cable-personality political talk shows like The O'Reilly Factor and Glenn Beck.^[4][41] Colbert hosts the show in-character as a blustery right-wing pundit, generally considered to be an extension of his character on The Daily Show. Conceived by co-creators Stewart, Colbert, and Ben Karlin in part as an opportunity to explore "the character-driven news", the series focuses less on the day-to-day news style of the Daily Show, instead frequently concentrating on the foibles of the host-character himself.

The concept for The Report was first seen in a series of Daily Show segments which advertised the then-fictional series as a joke. It was later developed by Stewart's Busboy Productions and pitched to Comedy Central, which greenlighted the program; Comedy Central had already been searching for a way to extend the successful Daily Show franchise beyond a half hour.^[42] The series opened to strong ratings, averaging 1.2 million viewers nightly during its first week on the air. Comedy Central signed a long-term contract for The Colbert Report within its first month on the air, when it immediately established itself among the network's highest-rated shows.^[43][44]

Much of Colbert's personal life is reflected in his character on The Colbert Report. With the extended exposure of the character on the show, he often references his interest in and knowledge of Catholicism, science fiction, and The Lord of the Rings, as well as using real facts to create his character's history. His alternate persona was also raised in South Carolina, is the youngest of 11 siblings, and is married.^[45] The actual Colbert's career history in acting and comedy, however, is often downplayed.

Politics[link]

2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner[link]

On Saturday, April 29, 2006, Stephen Colbert was the featured entertainer for the 2006 White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. Standing a few yards from U.S. President George W. Bush^[46]—in front of an audience the Associated Press called a "Who's Who of power and celebrity"^[47]—Colbert delivered a searing routine targeting the president and the media.^[48] In his politically conservative character from The Colbert Report, Colbert satirized the George W. Bush Administration and the White House press corps with such lines as:

Colbert received a chilly response from the audience.^[50] His jokes were often met with silence and muttering, apart from the enthusiastic laughter of a few in the audience.^[51] The major media outlets paid little attention to it initially. Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism professor Todd Gitlin claimed that this was because Colbert's routine was as critical of the media as it was of Bush.^[52][53] Richard Cohen, also writing for The Washington Post, responded that the routine was not funny.^[54] The video of Colbert's performance became an internet and media sensation,^[55][56] while, in the week following the speech, ratings for The Colbert Report rose by 37% to average just under 1.5 million total viewers per episode.^[57] In Time magazine James Poniewozik called it "the political-cultural touchstone issue of 2006".^[58] Writing six months later, New York Times columnist Frank Rich referred to Colbert's speech as a "cultural primary" and called it the "defining moment" of the 2006 midterm elections.^[59][60]

2008 Presidential bid[link]

Wikinews has related news: Colbert officially withdraws Presidential bid; Obama supporters pressured South Carolina

Under his fictional persona in The Colbert Report, Colbert dropped hints of a potential presidential run throughout 2007, with speculation intensifying following the release of his book, I Am America (And So Can You!), which was rumored to be a sign that he was indeed testing the waters for a future bid for the White House. On October 16, 2007, he announced his candidacy on his show, stating his intention to run both on the Republican and Democratic platforms, but only as a "favorite son" in his native South Carolina.^[61] He later abandoned plans to run as a Republican due to the $35,000 fee required to file for the South Carolina primary,^[62] however he continued to seek a place on the Democratic ballot and on October 28, 2007, campaigned in the South Carolina state capital of Columbia, where he was presented with the key to the city by Mayor Bob Coble.^[63]

After announcing his presidential ticket, he asked his viewers to cast their votes by donating to DonorsChoose.org, an online charity connecting individuals to classrooms in need.^[64] Colbert's promotion inspired $68,000 in donations to South Carolina classrooms, which benefited over 14,000 low-income students.^[65] Colbert teamed up with DonorsChoose.org again in 2008 by asking supporters of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to do the same. As a lead-up to the Pennsylvania primary, he created a "straw poll that makes a difference", where people could donate to Pennsylvania classroom projects in honor of their favorite candidate.^[66] Colbert viewers donated $185,000 to projects reaching 43,000 students in Pennsylvania public schools.^[67]

On November 1, 2007, the South Carolina Democratic Party executive council voted 13–3 to refuse Colbert's application onto the ballot. "The general sense of the council was that he wasn't a serious candidate and that was why he wasn't selected to be on the ballot", stated John Werner, the party's director. In addition, he was declared "not viable",^[68] as he was only running in one state.^[69] Several days later he announced that he was dropping out of the race, saying that he did not wish to put the country through an agonizing Supreme Court battle.^[70] CNN has reported that Obama supporters pressured the South Carolina Democratic Executive Council to keep Colbert off the ballot. One anonymous member of the council told CNN that former State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum had placed pressure on them to refuse Colbert's application despite his steady rise in polls.^[71]

Though Colbert's real-life presidential campaign had ended, current Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Joe Quesada established in an interview on The Colbert Report that Colbert's campaign was still going strong in the fictional Marvel Universe, citing the cover art of a then-recent issue of The Amazing Spider-Man which featured a Colbert campaign billboard in the background. Background appearances of Colbert campaign ads continued to appear in Marvel Comics publications, as recently as August 2008's Secret Invasion #5 (which also features a cameo of an alien Skrull posing as Colbert). In October 2008, Colbert made an extended 8-page appearance webslinging with Spider-Man in The Amazing Spider-Man issue #573.^[72]

2010 Congressional testimony[link]

On September 24, 2010, Colbert testified in character before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, and Border Security. He was invited by committee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren to describe his experience participating in the United Farm Workers' "Take Our Jobs" program, where he spent a day working alongside migrant workers in upstate New York.^[73][74][75] At the end of his often-humorous testimony, Colbert broke character in responding to a question from Rep. Judy Chu, D-CA, and explained why he cares about the plight of migrant workers:

Democratic committee member John Conyers questioned whether it was appropriate for the comedian to appear before Congress and asked him to leave the hearing.^[77] Though Colbert offered to depart at the direction of the committee chairwoman, Rep. Lofgren requested that he stay at least until all opening testimony had been completed, whereupon Conyers withdrew his request.^[78]

Conservative pundits took aim at his Congress testimony not long after.^[79]

2010 Washington D.C. rallies[link]

In September 2010, following Glenn Beck's Restoring Honor rally, a campaign developed that called for Colbert to hold his own rally at the Lincoln Memorial.^[82] On the September 10, 2010 episode of the Daily Show^[83] and the Colbert Report Stewart and Colbert made preannouncements of a future event. On September 16, 2010, Stewart and Colbert announced competing rallies on the Washington, DC Mall on October 30, 2010, Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity", and Colbert's "March to Keep Fear Alive". Both were eventually merged into the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear.