After nearly five years of turning up to discuss their political stances, only to find themselves tricked into talking about prostitutes and cocaine, members of Congress are starting to feel like The Colbert Report may be less interested in providing them with a forum for discussing serious issues, and more interested in making them look like idiots. Politico reports that lawmakers on Capitol Hill have now been “repeatedly turning down requests” to appear on the show—particularly its “Better Know A District” segment, which has become infamous for interviews like the one where Georgia’s Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, whose pet project was a bill requiring that the Ten Commandments be displayed in Congress, could only name three of them. The representatives' main complaint, in the words of one aide: “They will edit it to make you look stupid.” Does the Society of Professional Journalists know about this egregious ethical breach?

Advertisement