Last night, Stephen Colbert showed a clip from Glenn Beck's radio show where Beck admitted that he's scared of what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are planning with their competing rallies in D.C. on October 30th.
Video and transcript below the fold.
Nation, all across this great nation of ours, the big news continues to be my upcoming March to Keep Fear Alive. KeepFearAlive.com. Go and sign up! If enough of you show up to my rally, we won't just be able to keep fear alive. We may be able to bring some fears back from the dead. Mothers, did you know they never capped that well that baby Jessica fell down? Lock your doors!
But there is one fear, folks, I must lay to rest right now. The gnawing fear that you missed my rally, which you might think I held yesterday in Portland, Maine, if you saw this. Jim?
LADY GAGA (9/20/2010): Repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell. Or go! Home! Go! Home! Go! Home!
Now don't panic. That wasn't me. First off, I haven't worn my hair like that since I worked at the Daily Show.
No, that is Lady Gaga, wearing my signature outfit of suit, tie and glasses. And of course, it being Lady Gaga, she had to make it slutty with a single Windsor. So the good news is, folks, you haven't missed your chance to defeat Jon Stewart's call for sanity, and to help me keep fear alive. Which is clearly working, because some otherwise stable people are already terrified of sinister plots.
GLENN BECK (9/20/2010): Jon Stewart has shown his colors along with ... Stephen Colbert, and they are going to activate the youth to try to get them to vote. ... They'll suppress all the way up, and then Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will go and activate the youth.
[So according to Glenn, getting young people to take part in the political process and vote is a very bad thing. If he had more faith in his own message and beliefs, he might think he could persuade young people to see the light and become conservatives, but I guess not.]
Who told him about the youth activation? Now look, folks, since he spilled the beans, I don't know what Jon's plan is. But I'm definitely activating the youth. I've been brainwashing them for 5 years, and come 30 October, they will do my bidding. But not to vote. That would be too obvious. For the record, I want them to be afraid to vote. Which reminds me, young people, pulling that lever could give you... hand cancer. (scary music)
So, what's my real purpose, you ask? Oh, you'll find out in due time. The real question, Glenn, is what is the pre-conditioned activation code? Is it the Queen of Diamonds?
Or perhaps it's something completely arbitrary? I don't know. What do you think, pirate squirrel?
Shh... shh... shh. Quiet, my lovely. Or, they could be activated by a completely innocuous phrase that doesn't mean anything to today's youth, like 420! When they hear that, I'm sure they'll spring into action with energy and focus. And my continued effort to keep fear alive, you're surrounded by poor people and their numbers are growing every day! Jim?
WOLF BLITZER (9/16/2010): Government figures out today show the nation's poverty rate jumped to 14.3% last year. ... More than 43 1/2 million Americans were in need. That's the highest number in half a century of record keeping.
Yes, it's the highest number since the government started keeping track in 1959. Prior to that, of course, there were no poor people. And according to voter rolls in many states, no black people. Nation, these statistics are awful for the obvious reason. They threaten the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. Just listen to this bleeding heart British babe on Fox Business going after my cash.
9/16/2010:
[Yes, she's Andrew Lloyd Webber's daughter.]
IMOGEN LLOYD WEBBER: If the GOP had their way, and kept those tax cuts, apparently it's going to add $4 trillion to the deficit over the next 10 years. Now if you're going to have this form of "stimulus", then I'm for the lower middle class getting it, who are near that poverty line, not those rich who are doing very well with their 8% up....
NEIL CAVUTO: We've never made the poor rich taxing the rich, you realize that.
Thank you, Neil. If rich people had to pay taxes, why would the poor even want to become rich? I know I'd rather live in a shanty made of my own children's tears, than have to pay 15% on a realized capital gain of $8 million. Republican Senate minority leader and human-jowl hybrid Mitch McConnell knows who the truly needy are, those making over $200,000 a year, calling them:
It's true. The rich have really suffered. In fact, I know many people who are now summer homeless. Some of them don't even know what catering service their next meal is coming from. Besides, giving money to rich people drives the economy.
What do poor people do with their money? They blow it on the first heating bill that comes along. It's always me, me, me! How am I going to feed my family? How am I going to pay my rent? Someone alert my next of kin. Well, if you ask me, folks, this poverty report is much ado about people who have nothing.
Here to make me feel like a monster about saying that, is the managing director of Save the Children's U.S. programs. Please welcome Mark Shriver! Mark, thanks so much for coming on.
STEPHEN COLBERT: Mark, these numbers, almost 44 million people living below the poverty line. 1 in 7 people. Why do we need to know that? That is a bummer, OK? Does it help? We will have the poor always.
MARK SHRIVER: Well, it's a national disgrace. It really is an amazing figure when you have 43 million people in poverty in this country. It's the biggest number ever. And really, the most disturbing fact is that kids are even feeling the brunt of the economy worse than adults.
COLBERT: OK, now you're playing the starving child card, and I don't that's fair. I mean, maybe if the kids had jobs, they wouldn't be so poor. Isn't child labor laws the thing keeping us from being prosperous again? Let's get those guys back in the factories changing bobbins.
SHRIVER: Well, you know, that's an interesting idea.
COLBERT: Thank you.
SHRIVER: The real answer is that when you have 1 in 5 kids living in poverty, you want to take those dollars that are in the economy and invest them in early childhood education.
COLBERT: Look, the best these numbers ever were, right now it's 1 in 7, the best these numbers ever got for America was 1 in 9 back in 1973. I mean, isn't this just a rounding error, the 1 in 7? Is it an alarming statistic, or just an ongoing sad statistic?
SHRIVER: It's the biggest number in the history of the United States. I mean, we've been around for obviously over 200 years, and it's the most people in poverty ever. So really what we ought to be talking about is not these alarming statistics, but really the need to invest in these kids to help them lift themselves out of poverty.
COLBERT: Charity, right? Not government.
SHRIVER: Well, it's a combination, you know, houses of worship....
COLBERT: Government can't do anything. We know the government can't do anything. So the government's out of it. Houses of worship, I like that.
SHRIVER: Well, I think when you look around, families need to get involved, houses of worship need to get involved. When the government made a commitment in the '60s when you talk about those numbers being the best they ever were, those were in the '70s, and that's as a result of a lot of the efforts of the Kennedy and Johnson administration. We had public will....
COLBERT: OK, but that was the War on Poverty, OK? We've had a War on Poverty since the '60s, we've had a War on Drugs since the 1960s, OK? We're giving up on the War on Drugs now, you know, now we're going to legalize marijuana eventually because we couldn't win it. Is it time to legalize poverty?
SHRIVER: Ah, no. Clearly, I think if you talk to folks, when you have 43 million folks in poverty....
COLBERT: OK, you throw around that number 43 million people in poverty, 1 in 7 Americans, but we're still the richest country on Earth, correct?
SHRIVER: We are the richest country on Earth.
COLBERT: So on average, everything's hunky-dory. It's just guys like you and me get to hold on to that money for the poor people to keep it clean.
SHRIVER: I think, ah, clearly what we want to do is, and where America's been at its greatest, is when we use imagination. You're doing a big rally in Washington, D.C.
COLBERT: Yes I am. You gonna be there if I invite you?
SHRIVER: If you invite me.
COLBERT: I have not invited you yet.
SHRIVER: No.
COLBERT: OK, that's good.
SHRIVER: Thank you, thank you. I mean, I think when you look at America's history, we've done great things when we use our imagination, when we mobilize the resources of this country. When you look at, you know, defeating the Germans, making the interstate highways go across this country....
COLBERT: Are you saying the poor are Nazis?
SHRIVER: No, I'm not, but what I'm saying is that when you look at putting a man on the Moon, it's the fact that the country is rallied around a cause. And I think we can do that with eradicating poverty. There's always been poverty in this country, there's no doubt about it. But if we mobilize as a country, we can help kids lift themselves out of poverty. Don't you think it's disgraceful when you have 1 in 5 kids living in poverty?
COLBERT: I think it's frightening. I think it's frightening. Because eventually, if we don't help the poor, they will rise up against us. Right? That's how revolutions start. That's a compelling reason.
SHRIVER: That is a compelling....
COLBERT: Being frightened of the poor, I think, is a compelling reason to help them. That's how I think fear can help our nation. So will you help me in saying that if we don't help the poor, they'll rise up against us?
SHRIVER: Well, I haven't been invited to the rally yet, so I don't know.
COLBERT: If you say it, I'll invite you. If you say, help the poor, or they will rise up against us.
SHRIVER: Right now??
COLBERT: Yes!
SHRIVER: Oh, I can't say that!
COLBERT: Well, then there's no invitation for you, my friend! But I'll tell you what, I hope you come around in the future. Thank you, Mark Shriver, Save the Children. And it's time that we all do it.
Um, if Glenn thinks this is about Democrats and Republicans, he's already completely missed the point. This isn't the "Rally to Restore Sanity to Our Two Main Political Parties". It's just the Rally to Restore Sanity.
C'mon Glenn. You know better.