A Fake Colbert Report Piece

So the reason I had no post yesterday was because I was working like a mutha on a project for my comedy writing class last night. The assignment was to write two pieces on the same news article--one for the Daily Show and one for the Colbert Report.

I can happily say the Colbert Report piece was a success. The Daily Show one? Noooooooot so much. It wasn't terrible, but it needs some work (luckily revisions are the assignment for next week.) So instead of giving you a real blog post today, I'm going to be incredibly lazy and just do a little copy/paste/voila action. So here is the spec Colbert Report piece. And maybe next week I'll show you the DS version...if I can mold it into something in any way useful.

Here we go.



Nation, as you know, I don’t trust the French. They drink mineral water instead of high fructose corn syrup, their kisses can get a little sloppy, and they can’t tell the difference between a female skunk and a cat with a paint stripe.

But I was outraged when I heard about a law France is enforcing: something so despicable, I nearly threw up in my mouth. I’m talking about the separation of church and state. *HURR!* Sorry.

Sure, in America, we believe in the separation of church and state, as long as we can still debate political issues using scripture. But in France, they don’t even swear their president in on a Bible! What do they use? Le Petite Prince? Or maybe just a nice plate of beef bourguignon.

But folks, even knowing this, I was shocked to hear that last week, France took their church and state separation a step too far when Apple obliterated a religion-centered iPhone app called “Jew or Not Jew”.

The app aggregates information on Jewish celebrities, so you can find out quickly if, say, Natalie Portman is or is not Jewish. This many Jewish celebrities haven’t been outed since Adam Sandler’s Hannukah Song.

But thanks to lawsuit threats, Apple France has said goodbye or, “frommage” to the app. According to CNN, recording a person’s faith in a public file crosses the line in France. But if you don’t know someone’s faith, how can you know how harshly to judge them? For example, if you didn’t know I was Catholic, you’d have no idea how much guilt I feel at what I’m about to say next:

Shame on you, France! Put down your croissants and see it the American way. We were built on the separation of church and state, with the understanding that church will inform every state decision we make.

Church and state should be as separate as peanut butter and jelly. You keep peanut butter on one slice of bread, and jelly on the other. Sure, you put the two together eventually, but that’s because they go together SO WELL! Deal with it, France. That’s how we do things here, in this one nation, under God.

We’ll be right back.