Despite all of the pearl clutching from our political class who are apparently extremely concerned that Stephen Colbert's testimony and a bit of comedy made its way into our Congressional record but not too terribly concerned that the hate talk by those like Rush Limbaugh are and Glenn Beck are considered mainstream and something devoid of controversy when it comes to our political dialog, Stephen Colbert did actually break character today and reminded me of why it was a good thing Rep. Zoe Lofgren invited him to that hearing. On John King's show his color man "Pete on the Street" who used to work for Colbert said that this clip was the real Stephen. Not him doing his bit from his show. Someone who's actually deeply religious himself and who just cares about those who are oppressed and are hurting. Despite his best attempt to shield that, I think the real reason he testified came through pretty plainly here.
DDay over at FDL was kind enough to post some of the transcript and more for Dave's slant on the hearing.
CONGRESSWOMAN JUDY CHU: Mr. Colbert, you could work on so many issues, why are you interested in this issue?
COLBERT: I like talking about people who don’t have any power. And this seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave. And, you know, whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, these seem like the least of our brothers, right now. And I know that a lot of people are the least of my brothers because the economy is so hard, and I don’t want to take anyone’s hardship away from them or diminish it or anything like that, but migrant workers suffer, and they have no rights.”
Thank you Stephen.