History Headscratchers / TheColbertReport

*** In other words, you sincerely believe it to be correct, but in reality, you can cross over into CriticalResearchFailure depending on the belief.

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** Pieced together from various interviews: He doesn't even know whether the name is French or Irish, which would obviously determine which pronunciation is right. His father grew up COL-bert and always wanted to change it to Col-BEAR, but his own father didn't get this and took it as an insult, so Stephen's father never did change it but told his kids to pick whichever pronunciation they liked. Stephen did settle on Col-BEAR when he went to Northwestern, and has been Col-BEAR ever since, both personally and professionally. He does the "get it together, COL-bert!" thing on the show because it's another good shorthand for the character being a TedBaxter who affects the pronunciation to make himself sound more impressive while still feeling like COL-bert deep down. I doubt the real Colbert harbors any insecurity over it.

** Liberal bias is built into the premise of the ''Report''; it travesties commentary, which is editorial in nature, and more specifically right-wing pundits, wile ''TDS'' ostensibly travesties newscasts, which aren't supposed to take a side.