Truth vs. Truthiness vol. 1: Colbert on Rose

I will speak to you in plain, simple English. And that brings us to tonight's word: Truthiness. Now I'm sure some of the word police, the "wordanistas" over at Webster's, are gonna say, "hey, that's not a word." Well, anybody who knows me knows that I'm no fan of dictionaries or reference books. They're elitist, constantly telling us what is or isn't true, or what did or didn't happen. Who's Britannica to tell me that the Panama Canal was finished in 1914? If I want to say it happened in 1941, that's my right. I don't trust books. They're all fact, no heart. And that's exactly what's pulling our country apart today — because face it folks, we are a divided nation. Not between democrats and republicans, or conservatives and liberals, or tops and bottoms. No. We are divided between those who think with their head — and those who know with their heart.

Many of you know I am an avid fan of political satire — things like The Onion and The Daily Show. I am also an avid fan of long-form, serious journalism: documentaries, news features, new journalism, biographies, and so on. One of my favourite sources for "serious" journalism, a show I try to never miss, is Charlie Rose on PBS. Nowhere else in the TV idiom (or even in print) can one find hour-long, commercial free "interviews" with the world's leading decision-makers, artists, thinkers, actors, and writers.

If you're a skeptical sort, the show's guest list from last week should convince you otherwise. Madeleine Albright, Henry Kissinger, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jancis Robinson, and Lou Dobbs all made a showing. Sting made an appearance on Tuesday, while on Wednesday Salman Rushdie, Michael Caine, and the President of Botswana all shared the "other" chair at Charlie's table, one after another. On Dec. 6, Charlie booked the authors of the Baker Report — James Baker and Lee Hamilton — on the same show as Tony Bennett. In the next two days, Clint Eastwood, Angelina Jolie, Matt Damon, and Robert DeNiro will all appear. And I don't need to mention that the famous oak table and black backdrop often plays host to the likes of Bono, Romeo Dallaire, Bill Clinton, and Thomas Friedman, the last of whom virtually lives in Charlie's studio.

Regardless of the billing on any particular night, it goes without saying that Charlie knows his shtick. If an interview is boring, it generally isn't because of Charlie. For his part, Mr. Rose labels what he does as "conversation." The label isn't a lie: Charlie often interrupts guests halfway through an answer. The show suffers from Mr. Rose's poorly-timed exhortations, but they still leave CR leagues above all other interviewing on television — though these days that isn't saying much.

Two things cause CR to falter. Well, three, but the fact CR broadcasts in Halifax at the same time as The Daily Show isn't exactly the show's fault.

Occasionally, Charlie books too many guests. This tends to happen just after a major news event; the show is filmed in New York, which, though a great location for dragging the world's artisans into a TV studio, is terrible for politics. CR's producers tend to patch-in most of their political-oriented guests via satellite links because, of course, none of these impoverished politicos can make the Washington-New York hike. Ahem.

The nature of the crime — politics — means these shows tend to have 4+ guests in one segment, some in the studio, some not. Satellite links make for bloody awful television when there's more than one guest and more than one point of view. Several guests inevitably attempt to make a point at the same time, and their tribulations immediately turn into aural gibberish. When one guest attempts to give another room for a riposte, the other does the same. Dead air ensues. ("Go ahead," the talking heads say in unison, followed by silence. "Um," they say in unison, followed by more silence. In the middle, a flummoxed Charlie Rose attempts to coordinate, his brow furrowed, his shoulders hunched, his hands raised and open like an orchestra conductor trying to conduct a symphony without the score.)

Charlie does much better in a studio-only setting — but even then he sometimes loses interest, or simply doesn't know the subject well enough to fill up an hour of dead space. Take, for example, Charlie's interview with the Dixie Chicks, broadcast last month. I know almost nothing about the Dixie Chicks, including the band members' names or the names of any of their hits. Even still, Rose's shortcomings were evident. Charlie had to ask a lot of dumbfounding questions (Paraphrased: "So... uh... what are you guys about?"), and couldn't contribute much as co-participant in the interview. Charlie is at his best when he fills in gaps that the television viewer may not know — details, anecdotes, clarifications and so on, some of it taken from his encyclopedic daily research, some of it taken from his own experiences in broadcasting and from his life in the who's-who circles of patrician New York haute couture. When he can't do this, CR's vaunted "conversation" turns into a standardized morning show interview. Only this version is longer, drawn out, and punctuated by silence. If you're not a fan of the Dixie Chicks, you won't get much out of this experience aside from 30 minutes of standard information about a band you're not even into.

(On the opposite end of the spectrum, Charlie interviewed a series of rappers and rap execs last year to much aplomb. It is obvious that Charlie doesn't listen to rap, yet his interview with Jay-Z, halfway through here and here, is stellar, especially after he hits on Jay Z's business savvy. Kanye West — see the second link — couldn't stop talking while in the dark studio, egging a smiling Charlie on with his vainglorious proclamations of being, paraphrased, "the best fuckin' rapper evah, dawg.")

Last week, the best of Charlie's game met head-on with Comedy Central's equivalent: Stephen Colbert of Colbert Report fame. The winner of the joust, if we're drawing swords, was Colbert. I've never known Colbert to be much of an improviser; most of the Report is scripted, and so is just about everything else Colbert has done since hitting fame as a fake news reporter on The Daily Show. But Colbert's on-air quips, out-of-character moments, and brilliant interview comebacks should have convinced me otherwise. The man makes for a brilliant interview. It's no surprise he used to be a serious actor. He shines on CR's camera, as most actors do. But he's also fun, intelligent, and surreptitiously unassuming. When he does need to hit the nail of the head and address all those nagging bits of immodesty that come along with becoming a cultural icon, Colbert slips into character to make the point, abandoning all the customary shame someone might experience while making such incantations (to make a in-character not-in-character distinction, Colbert cocks his head, takes on a slightly different disposition of character, with more gravitas, and says something along the lines of, "I'm brilliant, and everyone else is wrong," if not exactly in those words. Then he relaxes, now out of character, and laughs as if nothing he just said is true. True, perhaps not. Truthy? Probably).

As for the Report.... The Daily Show is brilliantly funny. It skewers public hypocrisy like nothing else on TV. The Colbert Report, however, is high art. It skewers hypocrisy, then becomes hypocritical, and then doubles back and skewers itself, which, because it now appears hypocritical, also appears hypocritical. Yet the point is made, and the laugh is achieved. And all of this is done in one beat of satire.

...I'm not particularly articulate, particularly when it comes to the concise, and in particular when it comes to the word particular. So, to offer a second opinion, here's Colbert on Colbert, on Rose:

Let me tell you the difference between me and Jon Stewart, Charlie. Can I do that? Can I call you Charlie? Good. Jon demurs. Jon says he doesn't have an impact, ok? "We don't want to be influential." I'll tell you what, I wanna change the world. I want to change it a little bit everyday. Not much, but give me the wheel. Give me the ball, God — I'll run it down the line.

How can you change the world, though?

[Colbert stares at the desk for a few moments, deep in concentration... he looks up:]

By catching it in the headlights of my justice.

Or this gem on Anderson Cooper:

He's crisp, and that's just not dress. I could have the same suits, and I wouldn't have the.... I wouldn't be as bright as a new dime. You know, the way he is? In the middle of a war zone, he's like, "aaah!" Spit and polish! You know? No one's ever made squalor like that.

Or on Geraldo Rivera:

Geraldo? He has a sense of mission. [...] I read once that when he goes jogging in Central Park, he's like a battleship on patrol. You know? "I'd love to see somebody get mugged.... because I'd bring the hammer down." [...] He's just with the absolute force of his justice... slowly turning the ship of destiny....

If you're a fan of Colbert, or The Daily Show, you should definitely take a gander with this interview. The whole shebang is about 40 minutes long, and Colbert remains out of character for almost all of it (watch as he segues into character near the end and ad-libs a few lines, though — as I described above, it's a treat). Skip to just after the 19 minute mark so you can avoid the New York Times' Baghdad bureau chief (and frizzy-head) John F. Burns, unless you're actually interested in the future of the Middle East and America's place in it, of course.