Let’s get the money line out of the way up front.

“This is America. I don’t want my tomato picked by a Mexican,” Stephen Colbert told a U.S. Congressional subcommittee on Friday. “I want it picked by an American (pregnant pause). Then sliced by a Guatemalan. Then served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”

Testifying in comedic character – as a right-wing blowhard – Colbert seemed to both amuse and annoy several members of the first branch of American government Friday. The fact that he did a statement switcheroo at the last minute probably rankled everyone on hand.

He arrived in the retinue of United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodriguez and at the invitation of subcommittee chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D – California) ready to give testimony on proposed changes to legislation governing itinerant crop pickers. He left having given more press to the grinding of America’s bureaucratic gears than any man since Oliver North.

It started shakily. Colbert turned up wearing his uniform: sober blue suit, sober striped tie and a goofy smirk.

They wiped the smirk off pretty quickly.

Just as he was introduced to the ungainly sounding House Judiciary Committee - Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, Colbert’s appearance was nearly derailed.

“Now that we’ve gotten all this attention, I suggest that you excuse yourself,” Rep. John Conyers (D – Michigan) said to him. “What do you say to that, Stephen?”

Colbert seemed taken aback. He responded that he didn’t understand the question.

“I’m not asking you not to talk,” Conyers said. “I’m asking you to leave the committee room altogether.”

Colbert sheepishly said he’d leave it up to the committee chairwoman. In the end, after hearing the testimony of three experts (including a right-wing academic that Conyers clearly felt he could set his sights on), the representative from Detroit relented. The American left sighed.

His five-minute statement amounted to a sitdown form of stand-up comedy.

“I certainly hope my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to CSPAN-1,” Colbert began.

He laid out the boundaries of the problem. America’s fruits and vegetables are picked by illegal immigrants earning low wages in poor working conditions. America doesn’t want illegal immigrants working at anything. It also wants to eat. So Colbert proposed the easiest solution.

“The obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables.”

Then he got off on the topic of “roughage” and offered to submit video of his colonoscopy.

He riffed heavily on a televised bit he did earlier this year, where he worked picking beans for a day. That’s how he met the UFW’s Rodriguez.

As he spoke, the camera panned the committee members. Many appeared to be stifling laughs. Some seemed agog. It later emerged that a written copy of Colbert’s statement submitted beforehand bore no resemblance to what he said once called upon.

He complained about big government.

“I'm not a fan of the government doing anything, but I have to wonder, why isn't the government doing anything? . . . Maybe this bill . . . will help. I don’t know. Like most members of Congress, I haven’t read it.”

He complained about bending over to reach the beans.

“If we can put a man on the moon, why can’t we make the Earth waist-high?”

His listeners alternatively grinned or scowled, depending on their party affiliation. Cameras caught one fiddling with her BlackBerry.

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Once he wrapped up (“U.S.A. Number one.”), Conyers gently chided him for hoodwinking the committee on his statement.

Later, during questioning, one Republican member asked Colbert whether he thought picking beans for a single day made him an expert on farm-labour issues.

“I believe that one day of me doing anything makes me an expert,” Colbert shot back.

His questioner could only smile.

Best Lines

Some of Stephen Colbert’s best lines while testifying before a U.S. Congressional subcommittee on Friday. Most were funny, before he ended on a sincere note:

“I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way to C-SPAN 1.” (The hearing was broadcast on C-SPAN 3.)

“It turns out — and I did not know this — most soil is at ground level.”

“I don't even want to watch Green Acres again.”

“This is America. I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American. Then sliced by Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.”

“The obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables — and if you look at the recent obesity statistics you’ll see that many Americans have already started.”

“I believe one day of studying anything makes me an expert.”

“After working with these men and women, picking beans, packing corn, for hours on end, side by side, in the unforgiving sun, I have to say and I do mean this sincerely: Please don’t make me do this again, it is really, really hard.”

“The point is, we have to do something because I am not going back out there. At this point, I break into a cold sweat at the sight of a salad bar.”

“I like talking about people who don’t have any power, and it seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but don’t have any rights themselves. Migrant workers suffer and have no rights.”

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