When Stephen Colbert got a buzz cut from Gen. Raymond Odierno this week it was both the least and the most important moment in his four-night sojourn in Iraq.
The Comedy Central star gave up a thick head of hair, and shelved his beloved blow-dryer. America won't soon forget the shtick -- Colbert forcibly shorn by the big, bald-headed general on "order" of the commander in chief, who beamed in via satellite TV to Camp Victory in Baghdad.
That scored lots of laughs and something more. It helped sidestep the presumptive war fatigue of the audience back home so Colbert could drive home a few more salient points: This war is not over. These soldiers are not home. Some of the rules (particularly the one prohibiting open homosexuals from serving their country) don't make sense. It won't be over any time soon.
Those messages were important enough to the comedian that he made sure everyone understood they came from the real Stephen Colbert, not just the blustery, right-wing character of the same name he portrays on the "The Colbert Report."
"My character and I both think it's a shame that we're not talking about the troops anymore," Colbert, the comedian, wrote, albeit in his role as Colbert, the guest editor of Newsweek magazine.
He's featured on this week's cover (this time with a faux haircut, "Iraq" carved into his scalp) and helped pick stories that also focus on the country where America has been at war for six years.
Colbert's satire clearly, and correctly, skewers the media for losing focus, despite the presence of 130,000 troops in the still-dangerous nation. Statistics from the Tyndall Report tracking service show that all three network evening news programs broadcast a total of just 99 minutes of news on Iraq in the first five months of this year.
The media's attention deficit had Colbert telling Gen. Odierno he had assumed the Iraq war had ended and we "had moved on to the new war between a wise Latino woman and old white men."
Yes, television, in particular, has moved on to the Supreme Court nomination fight of Sonia Sotomayor and other cares. But the Comedy Central provocateur signaled he didn't blame the media alone for their failed focus. He told the general (whom he compared to cartoon ogre Shrek) that Americans seemed to still "have many lingering questions about Iraq. For example: Where is Iraq?"
