clipped from: www.alternet.org   

So ... Stephen Colbert doesn't really mean all those wacky liberal-bashing things he says, does he? Comedy Central's The Colbert Report is obviously a parody of a wing-nut right-wing talk show. Right?


Or ... is it? (Cut to devilishly quizzical chin-grabbing stare.)


He can't be serious.


Or ... can he sort of be? (Cut to screeching bald eagle.)


Well, apparently Colbert is just that good. His character is so pitch-perfectly ambiguous that, according to a new study, what it is you see in him is whatever it is you want to see in him. If you are liberal, he is a liberal, too. If you are a conservative, he is a conservative, just like you.


322 participants with a mix of political ideologies to a three-minute 2006 video clip of Stephen Colbert discussing media coverage of the Iraq war with "super liberal lefty" radio host Amy Goodman.

. The results are published in the April edition of the International Journal of Press/Politics.

"It requires the audience to fill in the gap, to get the joke.