Stephen Colbert talks Al Franken, Roy Moore, other disappointing buttholes
On a day where yet more disturbing, dismaying, and downright disgusting details emerged of powerful men being assholes to women, Stephen Colbert took time out of his Thursday Late Show monologue to muse, “I guess there are no good people left.” Seemingly resigned to the fact that, any goddamned day now, we’ll see another formerly admirable figure knocked off his pedestal by a stomach-churning push notification, Colbert urged possible future fallen idols like Tom Hanks, Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, and Malala Yousafzai to spare him the suspense and just get it over with. (Note: As off press time at least, none of those four people have been accused of being sexual predators. So we’ve got that going for us.)
Colbert’s pain came in response to Thursday’s revelations of sexual improprieties by Democratic U.S. Senator Al Franken (D-MN), who was accused by current radio newscaster Leeann Tweeden of inappropriately kissing her during rehearsals for a skit while the pair were part of a 2006 USO tour, and then of posing for a “humorous” picture appearing to grope Tweeden’s breasts while she slept. Franken admitted to the sleazy behavior in two separate apologies on Thursday, at one point saying of the photo, “It was intended to be funny, but wasn’t.” Colbert, flashing a graphic of the poster for Franken’s 1995 flop SNL spin-off film Stuart Saves His Family, scorned frequent Late Show guest Franken’s explanation, suggesting that the film fits that description more than does a leering picture of unwanted sexual creepiness.
Less disappointing for Colbert—what with the person in question having no track record of supposed decency to sully—was the ongoing shitshow surrounding Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore. Playing clips of Moore’s defiance in the face of mounting evidence that he’s spent decades preying on underage Alabama schoolgirls, Colbert noted sarcastically that at least one of the “grand total of way too many” women accusing Moore today was over 18 when the alleged harassment happened. (“One of yesterday’s accusers was not a minor—woo?,” Colbert sighed in mock relief.)
Speaking of Moore’s rambling, media-blaming, gay-bashing, Mitch McConnell-threatening, good ol’ “stick with me and I’ll let you keep being racist” rally, Colbert could only gawp in exquisite horrified deadpan after Moore shared advice from his judge mentor about how hemorrhoids help you look judicially serious. “Are you holding a press conference about your butthole?” Colbert asked, before going through even more tales of Moore being banned from a local mall for hitting on teenage employees. As Colbert summed up Moore’s various stances in one final impression of the shockingly still-viable Republican candidate, “You can take my teen sales clerks when you pry her from my cold, dead hand.” Sounds about right.
Roy Moore is running against Democratic challenger Doug Jones, who—as of press time at least—has not been accused of being a sex creep.