One week after his 25-hour speech on the Senate floor began, Cory Booker spoke to Stephen Colbert on The Late Show with familiar eloquence.
“You and I are people of faith,” Booker told the host near the end of the conversation, “but there is a Civic Gospel in this country that we need more than ever.” He noted that the Declaration of Independence from a kingdom overseas was a declaration of interdependence among the people of this emerging nation as well. An extended version of the interview is now up on YouTube.
I rarely stray into the sociopolitical here, never mind the blog’s general dearth of content, and even then it’s usually either satire or commentary in light of whatever entertainment is under discussion. With our nation truly in crisis, however, it would be ridiculous to have linked to a nutso Colbert Colbert Report report on scallop gonads a dozen years back and wonky process talk about talk shows over time yet not share this mere 25-minute segment that moved me just because I largely prefer to keep things on the blog fun. Plus, I already came out as a flaming rationalist in January by observing that the United States Capitol was in fact violently swarmed by rioters.
The speech given by my original home state’s senior Senator last week was certainly a performance, as Steven Zeitchik wrote the next day in a cogent essay for The Hollywood Reporter that analyzed it as crafted spectacle, but it wasn’t simply performative. While he may be uncomfortably earnest at times for some, at other times for many, that earnestness to me comes from a good and genuine place.
Related: 5 of Five • Deft Wonk • The Sixth, Lies, and
Videotape • Week Links • Not Necessarily Not the News
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