Did you see Hillary Clinton's "surprise" appearance on The Colbert Report last night? It's all the cool kids are talking about, and the reviews are unanimous:
Hearing lots of positive reviews of Clinton on Colbert from journos.
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) August 6, 2014
I'm so in personality lust with Hillary Clinton. #colbertreport
— Kaitlin (@kaitlinlilith) August 6, 2014
@PaulBegala She killed. If she doesn't run, she could have her own comedy show. pic.twitter.com/q8lCMWgNM2
— Jon Maas (@jondmaas) August 6, 2014
Seriously, how could you have missed it? It was the "must-see morning clip" at SALON DOT COM. And it's not like Clinton's appearance was actually a surprise:
a little bird emails: watch HRC as the "surprise" guest on Colbert tonight
— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) August 6, 2014
For some reason, my studio is crawling with Secret Service agents talking about somebody codenamed "Cillary Hinton." Ooh, I bet it's Biden!
— Stephen Colbert (@StephenAtHome) August 6, 2014
Also, The Colbert Report is one of the only shows on which Hillary has yet to plug her brutally underperforming memoir, Hard Choices.
Some of you might remember when Colbert's show was clever and consistently funny, rather than predictable pablum for conventional liberals who want to validate their political views and feel intellectual at the same time. Because not everyone can "get" all of the jokes and the deeper meaning behind them. Tuesday's show amounted to little more than one celebrity helping out another celebrity who is struggling to sell copies of her book.
Colbert also reminded us that Hillary is "extremely qualified" to be president. (But he did it in a sort of jokey way.) To set up the bit, he fake criticized her memoir as "656 pages of shameless name-dropping," and just couldn't believe that "one woman can be in so many places at once." Enter Hillary, in the creepiest way possible. (But, to her credit, without assistance.)
The audience cheered for a full 30 seconds before erupting into chants of "HIL-LA-RY!"
Colbert dutifully bowed before the cackling celeb.
They proceeded to perform a scripted bit where they attempted to out-namedrop one another. It wasn't funny, but that didn't stop anyone from laughing like maniacs.
At one point, Hillary "joked" about having lunch with Ecuadorean president Rafael Correa, a socialist tyrant and sworn enemy of the Free Beacon, a prominent anti-Clinton website. Coincidence?
Then there was a hilarious moment where Hillary attempted to come up with a diplomatic solution to the age-old question of "Would you rather fight one horse-sized duck, or a hundred duck-sized horses." More laughs.
Then Colbert was forced to make a "hard choice" about plugging Clinton's book, which he did, obediently (but in a sort of jokey way).
You can even buy Clinton's book via the Colbert Report website.
Erik Wemple's assessment should speak for most sensible human beings:
Colbert runs a comedy show, so he carries no obligation to press Clinton with probing questions as he raises her stature with the precious audience of "The Colbert Report." Yet the cheap jokes and the host’s fawning approach toward Clinton teamed up for an embarrassing display.
It is not clear if Hillary was compensated for her time. Assuming she was paid her standard wage ($250,000 an hour), she would have made approximately $33,333 for the eight-minute appearance.
