Minnesota’s potential presidential candidates are giving Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert plenty of material these days, from Tim Pawlenty letting news of his candidacy slip on CNN (before backpedaling on the topic) to Michele Bachmann telling Iowa conservatives that the earth is 5,000 years old.
Last weekend, Bachmann gave an address to The Family Leader, a conservative Iowa group. While Bachmann made many controversial statements — including the debunked claim that Planned Parenthood “wants to be the LensCrafters of Big Abortion” and her charge that Minnesota’s U.S. Senate election was “stolen” for Al Franken — Colbert keyed in on statements about gay marriage, which he characterized as “shaking her anti-gay money-maker to win over the Family Leader leader” and “proving her anti-gay street cred.”
“In 5,000 years of recorded human history,” Bachmann told Iowans, “has any society ever defined marriage as anything other than between men and women?”
“Of course, everyone knows, the earth is 6,000 years old,” Colbert said, referring to the age some “young earth creationist” Christians believe the planet to be. “Which means those first 1,000 years were super gay.”
(Scientific consensus puts the age of the earth at more like 4.5 billion years.)
Then last night Colbert turned to Tim Pawlenty, a man he says “gives me Paw-lenty to dream about… although when he starts talking in those dreams, I dream I’m falling asleep.”
Colbert called “shocking” Pawlenty’s Wednesday night admission to CNN Piers Morgan that “I’m running for president,” not vice president. Pawlenty’s staff later tried to walk back that statement by saying a formal statement about the Republican’s candidacy would come later — a move Colbert likened to trying to restore one’s virginity.
It’s the second time in about a week that Colbert has taken on Pawlenty: He looked at Pawlenty’s efforts to woo young Iowa Republican with groaner jokes about Lady Gaga, Barack Obama and Charlie Sheen.
Colbert on Bachmann at the Family Leader:
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