For those who have followed the Cobert Report, you know that Stephen Colbert uses a special kind of humor to skewer his opponents. He pretends to agree with points of view he opposes in order to show how absurd or illogical they are.
So when he did a piece on “the drug lobby – the fighting stoners!” (complete with an interview with Ethan Nadelmann) he was constantly showing the absurdity of the pro-drug war position, while seeming to ridicule Nadelmann.
Colbert: “The war on drugs: a great war, or the GREATEST war?”[…]
Colbert: “We’ve got hundreds of thousands of people in jail right now, because of the war on drugs.”
Nadelmann: “That’s right.”
Colbert: “So you admit the war on drugs is working.” […]
Colbert: “On the day when you think you might win your little battle of freeing all these criminals from jail, please just give me like a two week warning so I can build a panic room in my house for when your drug addled zombies take to the streets ruling the night and feasting on human flesh.”
You get the idea.
So I was dumbfounded when I discovered that the Drug Czar’s “blog” was linking to that Colbert segment.
Not much is funny about drug abuse, but Stephen Colbert takes a shot:
The Drug Czar: Developing a sense of humor, or completely clueless?