Correction Appended

WASHINGTON - REPRESENTATIVE JAMES P. MORAN, Democrat of Virginia, does not have the kind of record most lawmakers would herald on national television. He has offended Jews with impolitic remarks and made news for scuffling with his wife a day before she filed for divorce. A former boxer, he threatened to slug one House colleague, and has thrown a punch at another.

So what in the world possessed him to appear on "The Colbert Report," the late-night Comedy Central show, and allow himself to be goaded into taking a swing at the host, Stephen Colbert? "Because," Mr. Moran explained, "a little self-deprecation on the part of a politician is priceless."

Self-deprecation is often in short supply in Washington. But Mr. Colbert, playing the deadpan reporter in his "Better Know a District" segments, is injecting a new levity into politics. Tongue firmly in cheek, he is on a quest to interview -- or lampoon -- all 434 members of the House. (The man who held the 435th seat, the disgraced California Republican Randy Cunningham, "is dead to me," Mr. Colbert declared.)

So Mr. Colbert is creating a litany of fools on the Hill. He drew Jack Kingston, a Georgia Republican and seemingly boring white guy who once lived in Ethiopia, into a discussion of his "African-American experience." He tweaked Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, for proposing $300 million to stop school bullying: "Was that bill your idea, or did somebody bigger put you up to it?" He asked the Massachusetts Democrat Barney Frank, who is gay, about his wife. Mr. Frank was not amused. "Two Stooges short of a good routine," he complained.