Stephen Colbert Talks Oregon Shooting, McCarthy’s Benghazi “Little White Truth”

Stephen Colbert packed a lot of politics into his Late Show opening last night. As had many other late night show hosts, he began by addressing the latest school shooting.  Late-night comedy show serious/sad openers have become part of that post-school-shooting routine President Obama was talking about in his latest post-mass-shooting news conference.

“These things happen over and over again and we’re naturally horrified and shocked when we hear about them. But then we change nothing and we pretend that it won’t happen again,” Colbert said, echoing Obama’s angry comments hours after the community college shooting that left nine victims.  Colbert said he knows a thing or two about pretending, having done just that as host of The Colbert Report for nearly a decade. But he did not claim to know how to fix this particularly problem, while adding,  “I do know one of the definitions of insanity is changing nothing and then pretending that something will change.”

After which Colbert segued abruptly and briefly to “egomaniacal billionaire” Donald Trump – Trump having become a nightly gag on the show – before landing on the subject of “California’s No. 1 above-ground pool salesman, Kevin McCarthy.”

“When somebody asked him last week who should replace Boehner as Speaker of the House, McCarthy said ‘Why not me?’ and then immediately explained why not,” Colbert began.

He commended McCarthy for “not pretending that hurting Hillary’s poll numbers wasn’t at least part of the Benghazi Committee’s mission,” saying how nice it is to see that level of cold political calculation coming “from somewhere other than the Clinton campaign.” But, the only real way to deal with the “gaff-termath” of McCarthy having “committed the biggest sin in politics: honestly admitting something that everyone was already saying” is to hold a Benghazi Hearing Hearing. But he advised it should be given a name that “doesn’t feel so political.” Extra points if you can guess the name Colbert suggested the hearings be given.