Conyers: Colbert 'pretty profound'
Washington (CNN) – One of the more shocking early moments of the Stephen Colbert hearing did not come from the star witness.
It was when House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers asked a confused Colbert to "leave the committee room completely and submit your statement instead."
Conyers' visibly annoyed colleague Zoe Lofgren, who was chairing the subcommittee hearing, made clear Colbert was there at her request, and cut him off saying "the gentleman's time is expired."
After Conyers heard the opening statement of the Republicans witness, he said he wanted to withdraw his request that Colbert leave.
It was an odd moment, to say the least, to have the chairman of a committee try to kick out a witness invited by his subcommittee chairwoman.
But it was also unclear why Conyers did that, so I caught up with him right after the hearing and asked him:
Dana: "When you said he should leave, why did you want him to leave?"
Conyers: "Well I thought it was going to be a circus, and I wanted to avoid that."
Dana: "Was it a circus?"
Conyers: "No...I thought he was pretty profound."
Dana: "You didn't mind the jokes that he made?"
Conyers: "He was funny."
Dana: "Did you mind that he gave an opening statement that was quite different from what he prepared?"
Conyers: "Well, some people do it, nobody's done it as much as he has."
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Colbert is great. He's so good most conservatives don't even know he's making fun of them!
Stay classy dems... maybe next you can get Michael Moore to testify on healthy lifestyles...
Keep the idiots in show business.
We have enough idiots in D.C. already.
Wow, are they so stupid to not see he's openly mocking them?
yes.
Aaaaaw, poor GOP babies....don't like hearing from people who actually prove their political shenanigans and demagoguery wrong.
Only John Conyers could have heard what Colbert was saying and with a straight face say " it was pretty profound".How do these people get themselves elected to Congress and better yet how do they get reelected saying such idiotic things?
Hey – the guy was honest in his assumptions and honest in his apology after hearing Corbert out. Got to give him credit.
Once again, Colbert uses the sword of Comedy and the shield of Irony to illuminate and skewer the hypocrites.
This is really stupid, that a liberal comedian was even invited in the first place. Who is next? Seriously, what a joke of our system. American's do dirty jobs every single day in this country. The problem isn't the job, it is the pay. I don't know one person who wouldn't shovel poop for $50 an hour. If illegals weren't driving down wages, the task of labor wouldn't be so bad in the minds of AVERAGE Americans, who don't employ illegal workers to watch their kids, or cut their lawn. I would gladly rather live in the 1920's (with all the problems then), then be living through our decline into a lesser nation now.
Aside from the jokes, I think Stephen Colbert was a wonderful witness. He expressed that the undocuments did the work that no one else was willing to do at the wages no one else was willing to accept. I've always loved and admired the work he does for our service men and women.
I especially loved the story from one ofthe committee members about the worker who died of heat stroke because his employer refused to call an ambulance. It made the workers real people.
Re: Conyers: "No...I thought he was pretty profound." And, congress wonders why they are held in such low esteem!!
With the charged political atmosphere it is nice to cut through all the crap with humor! Colbert made a really good point about undocumented workers NOT taking jobs away from Americans! If we simply gave the migrant workers a pay raise they would just raise the price of produce around the country.. and I don't think that's what Americans want. The immigrants work very hard for many hours every day. I can't say that about the many sheltered middle class children in this country! We have to praise hard labor and not demonize it. This country was built with cheap labor (or free labor in some cases).. it is at the heart of capitalism.. buy cheap, sell high!
The fact of the matter is that most 18-25 yr olds get their news from the Daily Show and Cobert report. What does that say about the "mainstream" media? The line between news and entertainment was blurred out years ago. Ronald Regain played the role of his life and could now be considered for Mt Rushmore. Remember Shakesphere said "all the world's a stage and we are merely players." Or was that Rush?
As expected, Colbert was a joke... We've had enough of the comedy routine under this administration, I dont think this was helpful in any way.
Jokes on us for having such a dbag waste our time and money in Congress. You liberals just worship this stuff...but it's not funny. Dems thank their lib media supporters by having them testify in character in Congress???? What a joke. I wish Obama's presidency was a joke...........but unfortunately it's a joke on the constitution and american taxpayers.
The only thing funny in the life of John Conyers is his wife, her accepting of bribes galore and the fact that slow John knows nothing about it. Now that's all very funny! Please leave the Congress, Conyers!
Funny, this is exactly how the democratic party treats any American, they ignore the will of the people and wonder why they have lost our vote.
The Big $ Lobbyists LOVE illegals because Corporate America, especially in the Construction industry get to have a steady stream of immigrants that will work for cash, no benefits, no overtime or competitive wages. That is why Bush personally met with Construction executives when he tried to push amnesty. Besides if not illegal immigrants, Corporate America simply will outsource and replace YOUR job in Commie China or India. The Neo-Con artists say they are against Socialism and Communism yet them have no problem selling out YOUR job to Commie China...hypocrisy GOP style.
Mr. Coyer! The only circuss going around in in Congress! because of Rethuglicans of course.