Stephen Colbert's toxic irony

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last updated 8 January 2015

"Stephen Colbert's 'testimony' before Congress last week was a clear sign that ironic rot (if you’ve got a better term, let me know) is sinking into the foundation of our political system," says Jonah Goldberg at the National Review. In a broader cultural sense, the condition started with the "detached mockery" of David Letterman, "Saturday Night Live" and "Seinfeld." It reached a more advanced stage with Jon Stewart's sometimes brilliant "fake news program" "The Daily Show." An excerpt:

"The Daily Show" begat "The Colbert Report," in which Colbert plays a jingoistic, know-it-all borderline bigot whose standard for veracity can be summarized with the word “truthiness.”