"It's so cold that Bill and Hillary Clinton are sleeping together": CBS Cancels Stephen Colbert and It's the End of the World

For years. I was a big fan of The Late Show and watched it most nights when David Letterman was the host. When Stephen Colbert took over in 2015, I continued watching because I liked Colbert's comedy routines on The Colbert Report.

In time, however, I stopped watching The Late Show because Colbert got less and less funny. His monologues became snarky, and he mostly directed his witty barbs at Republicans.

Now, CBS is canceling Colbert and The Late Show franchise. Colbert makes $20 million a year, but his show was losing $40 million. You do the math.

Nevertheless, the Progressive Left is scandalized by Colbert's firing. The Writers Guild is calling for an investigation, and 200,000 people signed a petition accusing CBS of yielding to political pressure from the Trump administration. 

Senator Elizabeth Warren went so far as to point out that Colbert's termination "just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump[is] a deal that looks like bribery."

Colbert supporters demonstrated in the streets of New York City, chanting "Keep Colbert! Dump Trump!" One demonstrator said protesters were calling out "fascist censorship" against a Trump critic.

Here's my take. The legacy news and entertainment industry has been more liberal than the American public for half a century. Even as a kid watching the evening news on my family's Hallicrafters TV, I knew Walter Cronkite was a Democrat. Nevertheless, like most Americans, I trusted him to report the news fairly and objectively.

Likewise, Saturday Night Live and the late-night talk shows were populated by liberal Democrats, but they made fun of everybody--both Republicans and Democrats. I recall David Letterman observing that it was so cold that Bill and Hillary Clinton were sleeping together. And I remember Chevy Chase mocking President Gerald Ford for his clumsiness on SNL, and Dan Akroyd mimicking President Carter's apology for "flip-flopping on my flip-flop."

Those days of nonpartisan comedy are over. Now, Americans are in the streets demanding that Stephen Colbert, a sanctimonious sexagenarian, be reinstated to his $20 million gig on CBS, and Senator Warren hints darkly of bribery.

I miss the old days when Americans laughed at everyone in power--laughed at their pomposity, their hypocrasy, their venality, and their petty foibles that revealed their humanity. Don't you?

Is Senator Bernie Sanders auditioning for the lead role in the Bad Grandpa sequel?

Winter in southwest Mississippi is a lovely time. Even in February, the woods are dotted with green trees: magnolias, cedar, and pine.  Now that duck season is over, and the shotgun blasts have died away, Lake Mary, where I live, is especially placid. 

Unfortunately, I was anxious about President Trump's cabinet nominations, and I watched TV instead of contemplating the tranquil beauty of rural Mississippi. Would Trump's cabinet picks get through the Senate confirmation process and be confirmed, or would they be shot down like ducks in flight, destroyed by mean-spirited  Democratic senators delivering nasty questions like shotgun blasts?

Identifying the most boorish senator in last week's senate hearings would be difficult. Still, my vote goes to Bernie Sanders, Vermont's geriatric Jeremiah, who shouted at Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Trump's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services. 

Sanders seemed to be interviewing for the lead role in the sequel to Bad Grandpa. When Kennedy accused Sanders of taking money from the pharmaceutical industry, Bernie went nuts. Why? Because Sanders indeed took money from Big Pharma--$1.4 million in 2019-2020. 

Sanders was not the only Democratic senator who behaved clownishly. It seemed that all the Democratic senators were acting out comedic roles. 

As I recently wrote, Senator Warren reminded me of Emily Litella, the scatterbrained citizen protester played by Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live. Did Warren realize how ridiculous she looked as she screeched and shook her fists at the cabinet nominees?

Warren stridently accused Kennedy of profiting from vaccine lawsuits, yet like other Democratic senators, she took money from the pharmaceutical industry ($822,000 in 2019-2020).

Perhaps the least intelligent senator on Capitol Hill, Senator Mazie Hirono, reminded me of Roseanne Rosannadanna, one of Gilda Radner's SNL characters, who often began her commentaries by saying, "It's always something." During Kelly Loeffler's confirmation hearing, Hirono gratuitously asked Loeffler if she had ever been accused of making unwanted sexual advances. Such trashy behavior!

Senator Richard Blumenthal, who looks uncannily like Mad Magazine's Alfred E. Neuman, behaved like a bully at Kash Patel's confirmation hearing. Blumenthal concluded a partisan sermon by demanding Kash Patel answer a "yes or no" question. Patel answered the question honestly and forthrightly, but Blumenthal maliciously chose to misinterpret Patel's response.

In my mind, last week's senate confirmation hearings came across as one long episode of Saturday Night Live; the Blue State Democrats appeared to be reciting their lines for laughs.

As I watched these disgraceful proceedings, I asked myself this question. If the Democrats behave so churlishly when out of power, how would they behave if Kamala Harris had been elected president?

Is Bernie Sanders auditioning for the title role of Bad Grandpa?