How Punditry Is Awful: The Stephen Colbert Edition

From the Washington Post blog the Trail:

Each of the presidential candidates have their own profile on Facebook, the social networking site of the moment. Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.) has 158,000 supporters on his page, tops among the Democratic candidates, and Rep. Ron Paul (Tex.), the online star of the Republican field, has 34,000. There are also dozens of pro-candidate and anti-candidate groups. The most popular pro group, “Barack Obama: (One Million Strong for Barack),” has 392,000 members and was created by 26-year-old Farouk Olu Aregbe. Stephen DeMaura, 22, founded the largest anti group, “Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary),” which lists 514,000 members.

But Vachhani’s Colbert group beats them all.

“At a political level, comparing Mr. Obama and Mr. Colbert is patently unfair. To join Mr. Obama’s group … requires an explicit statement of political beliefs. Joining Mr. Cobert’s group signals that you’re a fan of his hilarious TV personality. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with this — but to comapre Obama and Colbert is truly to compare apples and oranges,” Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, blogged Monday on TechPresident, the hub of online presidential campaigning.

Added George Washington University’s Michael Cornfield, who teaches about political strategy and message development: “Colbert is entertainment and entertainment always outrates politics. People want to be entertained. That’s all this means.”

Well, maybe.

Facebook has gotten increasingly political in recent months — and why not? YouTube has its CNN/YouTube debates, and MySpace has partnered with MTV for its live instant messaging forums. Earlier this month, Facebook — with more than 44 million members, the core group being high school and college age students — hosted two two-hour seminars for congressional and campaign staffers in Capitol Hill.

Maybe punditry would be more meaningful if they took more time looking at real candidates instead of fake ones. Or at least didn’t use fake candidates for anything but comedic relief. (Articles about Colbert threatening Georgia: fine. Comparing MySpace friends as a lead-in to serious analysis: not fine).

This amount of attention paid to Colbert by anyone but Colbert himself is embarrassing, or at least an indictment of the inane year and a half long election process. Especially when they make direct comparisons with Facebook or something of that ilk. Yes, people are more likely to sign up with Colbert than Obama because it means far, far less. It’s as if pundits get paid not to think.