Hare v. Colbert
Friday, March 16th, 2007 10:24 amSo it’s Thursday morning, the day Rep. Phil Hare’s supposed to appear on The Colbert Report and his staffers pick up a copy of The Hill newspaper and see this headline: “Emanuel tells freshmen to avoid Stephen Colbert.”
Did somebody miss a memo here?
Hare, the Rock Island Democrat, had already gone to the Colbert Report last Friday for a sitdown for Colbert’s ”Better Know a District” segment. The bit is best known for the faux-blowhard’s elaborate efforts to get congressmen so flummoxed they say something dumb.
Sometimes it’s worked really well. You be the judge if it worked with Hare. You can see the segment here.
Anyway, Emanuel’s the guy that headed the DCCC last election cycle and played a huge role in Democrats winning the majority.
He’s a guy that people listen to.
In Hare’s case, though, it doesn’t appear he got the word. Tim Schlittner, Hare’s spokesman, said they hadn’t heard from Emanuel about the subject before his interview — or since it appeared last night.
Schlittner said he showed The Hill story to Hare yesterday morning and he shrugged it off. “Oh, that’s just Rahm,” the congressman said.
Actually, the profile of the 17th District, the 44th in the series, was pretty funny.
Colbert poked a little fun (but just a little) at Q-C institutions. “Nothing runs like a Deere — unless it’s run over by a tractor,” he joked.
He also puzzled over an area with five main cities being called the Quad-Cities and, counting his fingers, came up with this question: “Why would you name a city Bettendorf?”
As for Hare, Colbert got the congressman into a back and forth about the Underground Railroad, which had an important stop in Galesburg.
Here’s part of the exchange:
Colbert: “The underground railroad was against the law. So as a congressman you’re prepared to say there are some laws we shouldn’t pay any attention to?
Hare: “We had slavery, Stephen.”
Colbert: “So you think that slavery was so bad that we could break the law over it, and yet you don’t want Bush to be Lincoln in Iraq Civil War. You see … those things don’t go together.”
Hare: “You’re right, they don’t.”
Colbert: “So you realize now that you’ve made a mistake.”
Hare: “No. It was wrong to break the law to get people out of slavery, yes.”
Colbert: “It was wrong to break the law to get people out of slavery.”
Hare: No, it was…
Colbert: “That’s what you just said.”
Hare: “Let me rephrase.”
Colbert: “Rephrase, or flip-flop because it sounds the same to voters.”
Hare: No. It’s a rephrase.”
Colbert: “So you haven’t changed your mind about slavery.”
Hare: “No, it’s wrong.”
Colbert: “It’s wrong.”
Hare: “Absolutely.”
Yeesh, and Rahm Emanuel was worried.
Says Schlittner: “We have no regrets.”
March 17th, 2007 at 9:22 am
Ed,
Why are you asking if Hare missed a memo? By your own admission the interview was taped last week, fyi it was taped on March 8, if the headline appeared this past Thursday which was March 14 Phil would have had to go back in time to even consider Emanuel’s opinion.
As a regular water of the Better Know a District and Colbert I can say that Phil did a great job, better than most, and represents the Fighting 17th well!
March 19th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
ALF:
Just because the story ran last Thursday doesn’t mean the warnings weren’t circulated earlier.
But, truthfully, the “did somebody miss a memo” comment was made in jest. As the post also points out, Hare’s folks say they hadn’t heard from Emanuel before, or since.
As for how Hare did, if the worst that could be said was he slipped up on the underground railroad, that’s not going to inflict much political damage.
At least there was nothing about putting kittens into wood chippers.