Last night Fairfax’s Rep. Tom Davis (R) sat down with Stephen Colbert to better know Virginia’s “Fighting” 11th District. While it was great to see another local politician step up to the plate, Davis seemed a little befuddled by Colbert’s style. For example he likes the Doobie Brothers, but has no idea what a “doobie” is, and probably won’t be participating in any program to tag and track Republicans. Whew!
Maybe Davis’s performance just seemed flat due to Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (as Colbert calls her, “enemy of liberty, but friend of my show”) one-woman campaign to raise the bar for Report appearances. In fact, Norton is now taking over other people’s ‘Better Know a District’ segments.
When Colbert brought up Davis’s sponsorship of D.C. voting rights legislation and asked the Congressman whether Norton and he were an “item”, Davis honestly looked like he didn’t know what “an item” meant. (Has he never been to the supermarket check-out line and glanced at, say, People, Star, In Touch, Us, Entertainment Weekly, TV Guide or even Newsweek?) The footage immediately cuts to Norton herself, saying with her usual gusto, “Tom told you nothing of the sort.” Thank you again, Ms. Norton. You represent the District like no other, and make all us feel like friends of the show.
