C-SPAN3 got C-SPAN1 levels of attention earlier today when Stephen Colbert appeared, in character, as a witness in front of a hearing held by the House Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on immigration. Colbert’s testimony—which wasn’t preceded by an oath, but rather an assurance of “truthiness”—was ostensibly concerning the employment of illegal immigrants as farm labor, supposedly informed by his stint working on a farm as part of a UFW program called “Take Our Jobs”; but really it was an extended Colbert Report skit designed to make the committee members squirm (and a dry run for next month’s “March To Keep Fear Alive”). Michigan Democrat John Conyers actually asked Colbert to submit his testimony in writing without speaking, to which Colbert replied, “No hablo ingles” before launching into a satirical screed in which he offered to submit video of his colonoscopy as evidence and bemoaned the ground-levelness of the soil. (“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we make the earth waist-high?”)
Colbert also answered questions from the committee, though most members abstained, probably for fear of, as Rep. Dan Lungren said, their remarks being taken out of context. Iowa’s Steve King, however, did display some of the balls that Colbert is such a proponent of, jabbing back “Maybe amnesty supporters should spend less time watching Comedy Central and more time considering all the real jobs that are out there that require hard labor and don't involve sitting behind a desk.”