I Am America (And So Can You!)

Comedy Central's conservative superpatriot tells you how to live
Stephen Colbert is never at loss for opinions, but still the sheer scope and pace of his first book might surprise you. I Am America (And So Can You!) is a huge, insane send-up of those scattershot book-length rants Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck keep crapping out — sometimes by mimicking their wingnut worldviews to the letter. Colbert is just as qualified to tell you how to raise your kids, get a date, choose a religion or tie a bowtie as those omni-pundits. And so he does. Seriously, he spends a couple minutes talking you through the tying of a bowtie, with predictably miserable results.

Why is it so funny? Why does it work? Because Colbert has that sneakily unaware charm that makes you forget sometimes he's just a liberal playing a character. It's a neat trick, making you believe he believes that it's time to take the word "homosexual" back from the gays, or that the wallpaper industry is part of the liberal media, or that performance-enhancing drugs are really enjoyment-enhancing drugs. And is it wrong when you find yourself, you know, agreeing with him? "If you're wondering whether you're in a cult," he says, "the answer is yes." That actually makes a lot of sense. Colbert almost makes you wanna shut off your brain and live in his simple, fascist America. "I look back fondly on the memories I haven't repressed," he says like he means it. And maybe, so can you.