RIP, 'Stephen Colbert'

The faux fireplace that scantily warms the set of Stephen Colbert’s The Colbert Report features a saying engraved in the wall above it: videri quam esse, Latin for “to seem, rather than to be.”

It’s a play off the Latin phrase esse quam videri (“to be, rather than to seem”). The engraving is said to be a tip of the hat, and a wag of the finger — to borrow a phrase — to the host’s hyper-conservative, Geraldo Rivera-cum-Bill O’Reilly, all-about-me mock personality.

It’s a personality Americans — at least the liberal, young and overwhelmingly male viewers that make up his audience — have grown accustomed to. And it’s a personality that will die at the end of this year when the Report ends its run and Colbert prepares to take over the Late Show. Read more...