Colbert and Stewart Deride Citizens United

Colbert and Stewart Deride Citizens United.

Colbert and Stewart Deride Citizens United

What Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are doing with Colbert’s Super PAC characterizes the ambiguity and superficiality of the Citizens United Case in 2010. They show, with humor of course, how easy it is to form a Super PAC, and how easy it is to disbelieve that there is “no coordination” between a Super PAC with the candidate it “represents.”

They have, in fact, turned Citizens United upside down. With relative ease, Colbert formed his Super PAC using his own television show, and it received approval through the FEC last year. With former FEC Commissioner Trever Potter as his lawyer, Colbert whisked through the legal brickroad and the Colbert Super PAC was born.

On last night’s broadcast of the Colbert Report, Colbert transferred ownership of his Super PAC to Jon Stewart so that Colbert could run for President in South Carolina. There is no problem with this, right? The funny thing is, you are right. As Trevor Potter stated on the show, not even the fact that Colbert and Stewart are business partners is illegal, and as long as Stewart has “no knowledge” of what Colbert is planning, there is no conflict of interest, and no laws being broken. These two satirists have successfully mocked and undermined the existence and the justification of the Citizens United ruling, and have cleverly taught its audience a lesson in politics: money wins elections.