| | Colbert: Conservatives show how to damn Obama with their praise
 Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert took up the question on Wednesday of how a conservative pundit -- like the one he plays on tv -- can undermine Barack Obama at a time when even they feel forced to say nice things about him.
"America's problems have made it impossible for pundits like me to undermine Barack Obama," Colbert complained. "Of course, I want him to fall flat on his face -- but only after he's fixed my 401k. It is a tricky dilemma."
"But isn't there a way to say something nice to someone and be a douchebag at the same time?" Colbert wondered. "As always, folks, I turn to the master -- Rush Limbaugh, a man so wired to destroy civil discourse that many believe he was sent from the future to do so."
"I think this is a brilliant stroke by Obama," Limbaugh recently said of the appointment of Hillary Clinton. "He puts her over at Secretary of State -- how can she run for president in 2012?"
"Genius!" Colbert gushed. "Rush is praising Obama not for trying to help the country but for being so conniving he makes Lex Luthor look like a candy-striper."
"Rush isn't the only one," Colbert added, showing Chris Mathews calling the Clinton appointment a "deeply and perhaps brilliantly political" move.
"Obama's so shrewd," mocked Colbert, "when Hillary sleeps over in the Lincoln Bedroom, he'll put her hand in warm water so she wets the bed! Classic Obama!"
"The point is," concluded Colbert, "it is possible to damn Obama with our praise. Because the more we praise Obama for cynical, old-school political maneuvering, the more we can make it seem that nothing he does will feel like change."
This video is from Comedy Central's The Colbert Report, broadcast Dec. 3, 2008.
Download video via RawReplay.com
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