Nation, what's it mean that one of the major things making me feel proud to be American these days is the existence of a wildly popular TV show predicated upon the absurdity of feeling overly proud to be American?

The Colbert experience is so meta I'll bet even he sometimes gets lost in the comedic hall of mirrors in which his character operates. Parts of his audiences sure do. A recent study done at Ohio State University suggests that a lot of conservative viewers don't know he's kidding. More accurately, they know he's kidding, but think that deep-down, he really is a conservative and thus basically agrees with the positions he's pretending to be pretending to support.

Got that?

Me either.

Now, crazy as that seems (He does come from The Daily Show, after all), there's a grain of truth in there someplace. Colbert has no problem taking the piss (as the Brits put it) concerning religion, but is, in fact, a Sunday school teacher who apparently finds something worthwhile and believable in the Bible.