Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed Vice President Joe Biden on The Late Show. In the ten-minute segment (a second part was released online), the two men speak intimately and easily about loss, loneliness, and faith. It’s probably the first time Kierkegaard has been quoted on the stage of the Ed Sullivan Theater; it’s also probably the first time a standing vice president has been so willing to let his official guard down. Even by Biden’s standards, this is a remarkably candid interview.
This is what we were hoping for. Maybe it’s what CBS was hoping for when they signed Stephen Colbert to replace David Letterman as the host of The Late Show. Maybe they were looking for a bankable name and face, but in some ways, this is how Colbert became a bankable name and face; his best interviews and most biting satire on The Colbert Report were always informed by an abiding commitment to dignity, whether it be that of the subject of his interview (consider how many of those spots ended with the host flummoxed by his guest’s ability to win him over) or, in a kind of via negativa, of the light to which the darkness he explored subsequently implied.
You can watch both parts below.
