I Am America (And So Can You)
Stephen Colbert, I Am America (And So Can You)
Publisher: Grand Central
2007, 230 pages, hardcover, $26.99

This book is for those who cannot get enough “truthiness” during the week from watching The Colbert Report. Much like he does in the show, Colbert in I Am America (And So Can You) parodies Republican positions without stepping out of his spoof right-wing pundit persona by, well, simply stating the right-wing position on issues in slightly less “Fair and Balanced” terms than Fox News (if such a thing were possible).

For 230 pages, the reader is exposed to nonsensical fallacy-ridden arguments that have become the hallmarks of politics in America. For those unfamiliar with The Colbert Report, Colbert’s final solution for all social problems revolves around the invocation of a Republican-position-embracing Jesus. Couple that with a willingness to “liberate ourselves from [an] old factual myth” (i.e., the right to discard uncomfortable historical facts and turn them into myths), and suddenly the world can be molded to fit Colbert’s reality. The book replicates not merely the content but also the thematic structure of the show. For example, the page margins contain contradictory or explanatory (solely for the purpose of humor) notes (because Colbert has a lot of opinions). This marginalia plays on the “Word of the Day” segment from the show wherein the text on the screen contradicts what Colbert says.

The book’s fourteen chapters are divided by random topics that Colbert is interested in, ranging from “Old People” to “Sex and Dating.” Whether it is fighting for the little guy (the oppressed richest one percent of the country) or protecting America from turning completely gay, Colbert manages to inject a healthy dosage of conservative propaganda into each chapter. He finds no use for old people and makes the modest proposal of putting to death by firing squad those who “desert” the work force by retiring (“simply un-American”). While this idea may appear to be just another innocuous suggestion to solve the Social Security problem, it is an assault by Colbert on the larger liberal ideology that allows lazy liberals to get a free ride post-retirement from the government. As if worrying about the drain on social security weren’t enough, Colbert also finds time to explore 1001 abstinence positions while having to contend with government regulations that prevent him from marrying his cousin: “Hey Congress, stay out of our bedrooms!” he admonishes. “Unless, of course, those bedrooms are filled with gay people.” Nothing bothers Colbert more than the theft of the word “gay” and the loss of anger against gays on the great battlefield of U.S. culture, where people have begun to accept gays as friends and (gasp) role-models.

No spoof of a conservative pundit would be complete if an immigrant went un-insulted. Colbert, though color, gender, and race blind, knows a Mexican when he sees one. In one of the lighter moments of the “Immigrants” chapter, when Colbert isn’t busy formulating plans for a volunteer militia, he warns that he isn’t cool with the usage of exclamation marks by immigrants writing in English. He footnotes that by saying, “Don’t you dare put any of them upside-down and in front of sentences.” It is this very political incorrectness that ultimately makes the book a success.

In his inimitable style, Colbert calls upon the full orchestra of conservative paranoia. While Colbert misinterprets Darwinism and uses it as a justification to subjugate animals, he rejects evolution and proclaims it merely a theory—of course, as an American living within a democracy, it is Colbert’s right to choose what theory to believe in. Despite this, he thinks of Jesus as an evolved God, whose predecessors include Ganesh, Buddha, and Zeus. Despite this, he brushes off other (non-Catholic) religions because they do not believe in Catholicism. About Hinduism, his favorite religion among those that lead to hell, he writes: “They look at your karma account and you come back as something better or worse […] it means if you’re good enough in this life, you can be reincarnated as a Catholic.” In a move to implicate the liberal teaching establishment in his blame game, he says that other religions would never have posed a problem if it weren’t for the “edu-bators,” the “lunatic[s] in a mortar board and elbow patches” teaching textbooks instead of the Bible.

Providing the backdrop for Colbert’s political ramblings is a lightly written story of his life consisting of unabashedly clichéd, sentimental, and, ultimately, made-up tales designed to promote nostalgia for God and America (both of which are synonymous in the book), as they were in the “good ol’ days.” His personal message to all readers: Don’t despair—it is possible to attain glory even in today’s treacherous liberal-controlled world by lying on your college applications to the Ivy League and establishing a connection with the name of a historic campus building, in just the way Colbert says he found success: “In conclusion, my great-great-uncle was Daniel B. Fayerweather of Fayerweather Hall.” You too, like Colbert, can succeed in life and help return the world to what it used be when “gays were ‘confirmed bachelors.’”

Finally, a note of caution for those who’ve never seen the show: a prerequisite for enjoying this book is forgetting about Jesus and being generally agreeable to the idea of finding salvation in Colbert. The self-absorbed, in-your-face conceited tone of the book requires the complete surrender of your own opinions, so that you can accept Colbert is right and you’re wrong—about everything.

—Saurabh Gupta