Last 'Men' Standing: Is this the End of Free Speech in Late Night? – August 12, 2022

Recently watched Stephen Colbert do a hilarious impression of Joe Biden trying to get his damn arm into his sportscoat, flailing around in circles like he was caught on a playground carousel.

It plays out as less of a spoof and more of appeal, ala, “C’mon, what the hell, pal?”

A good-natured jab at the current president. Not all that unlike Colbert’s less-than-good-natured jabs at our former, far-less-good-natured one. But still, it cut. And pretty deep, actually.

News-of-the-day satire and late night comedy go hand-in-hand.

Always have. But for how much longer I’ve begun to wonder?

Many things previously thought unthinkable have become thinkable—even more than that—played out for real in real-time, right before our eyes.

Makes me think of a movie scene wherein a couple of Nazi patrolmen get laughed out of a theater. The setting early 1930’s. Soon afterward, the explosion. The laughter silenced. The run-up to WWII had begun.

Mockery would not stop it.

When I was about 11-years-old, I’d started to learn about Hitler, the Holocaust, anti-Semitism. Even then, I couldn’t understand why so many German people were so naïve about what happened, and why they didn’t act to stop it.

I do now.

I remember telling my Dad how glad I was that we lived in America, and that Americans were too good, too smart, and just better, more morally upstanding folks. He said, “One day, people are going to come along and say Hitler was just misunderstood.”

Last week, a sitting member of Congress said exactly that.

If You Want the Right Man for the Job, Send a Woman

For seven seasons on TBS, that woman was Samantha Bee.

Not anymore.

The show was smart, award-winning. Prompted thought, debate. Funny as hell at times. Scary as it at others.

A business decision.

The worst of its kind. Why? Well, because, to me, it quacks like the duck of censorship, silencing the voice of the most prominent female comedian on television. How long before Trevor Noah, John Oliver, Bill Maher, Kimmel, Fallon, or Colbert himself, or any other of the late night comics suffer from the same bird call?

An unthinkable thought I’ve started to think is possible.

Maybe it’s even probable.

News at 11. Or, not.