Now That's Funny: Stephen Colbert Says His 'Report' Isn't Ideological

Stephen Colbert is a funny man, and he’s got the Emmys to prove it.

The comedian’s Colbert Report won big at Sunday’s Emmys Awards for his Comedy Central faux news show, but he’s equally funny in thinking audiences don’t know where his personal politics fall. Colbert shared that view point after his show snared two Emmys over the weekend.

We use the show to make jokes, but the jokes are things that we care about because we are writing about the news, and you can’t do 160 (shows) a year unless you have some passion of what you are talking about,” he said backstage after winning an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series, responding to a question about whether he uses his platform to promote his personal convictions, such as the time he took his mock conservative shtick to Congress to testify on illegal immigration. “I’m not trying to make a point; I’m trying to make a joke. Sometimes my personal views are what I am saying, but it is important to me that you never know when that is.

It doesn’t take a Columbo-like interrogation to suss out Colbert’s political leanings, or the fact that his program lives to keep liberal memes alive. His Report routinely defends or deflects criticism from President Barack Obama. He teamed up with fellow Comedy Central host Jon Stewart three years ago for a mock political rally in response to conservative Glenn Beck’s Restoring Honor event.

The Colbert Report, like Stewart’s The Daily Show, is unquestionably a left-of-center outlet which occasionally hits liberal targets. Sometimes the shows work in concert for progressive causes. For Colbert to deny that fact, or to pretend his audience thinks he’s a fair and balanced political comic, is absurdly funny.