Stephen Colbert guest-edited this week’s issue of Newsweek. Anyone who “worried” that such a serious subject would be in careless hands with Colbert obviously doesn’t watch his show; or is unaware of his tireless advocacy on behalf of the troops via the WristStrong program and Donors Choose; or hasn’t seen/read interviews with the man revealing his fundamental menschliness; or has missed all those interviews where he goes toe-to-toe with authors, editors, thinkers and politicos and keeps them hopping (in fact, when I first heard about his Newsweek gig I assumed it was an excuse for him and Meacham to geek out on religion).
Point being, Colbert is more than equal to the task. And we all know he’s doing a huge favor for Newsweek here, so soon into its new incarnation, by making it buzzy and relevant. But he’s doing more than that: He’s calling attention to the troops, who have been so out-of-sight-out-of-mind in recent years (yes, years!) that “the Forgotten War” is starting to refer to Iraq rather than Afghanistan).
It’s not just for the MSM, squeezed by expensive Baghdad bureaus; online, the Iraq war has been desperately in need of buzz for ages. As soon as I saw Colbert’s cover this morning I thought instantly back to the last Iraq war issue: “Voices of the Fallen,” a special issue published in March 2007 featuring the words of troops killed in Iraq — their letters, journals and emails sent to wives, sons, daughters, siblings, parents, sweethearts, friends. Then-Washington Post Co. chair Donald Graham called it “what I think might be the best issue of Newsweek in the 75 years of the magazine.” It was searing and painful and extremely moving. It was also a total flop online.
Back then, I called it a “blip in the blogosphere” with all of 76 links on Technorati after almost a week; two years later, the Iraq war was hardly getting even that much traction. I woke up the morning of March 19th looking to see if the Iraq War anniversary was a trending topic on Twitter; it wasn’t, by a long shot. (That’s how GPICT was born.)
Colbert, by contrast, is anything but a blip. You can’t click through more than a few pages on HuffPo (or any news/pop-culture site, really) without seeing something from his show, be it a killer gotcha interview, hilarious goofy send-up or getting a Congressman to talk about how much he loves hookers and blow. His movements make waves (and change Wikipedia pages, and name bridges, and space stations). It’s not the Iraq issue of Newsweek that’s getting attention, but the Colbert issue.
But does it matter as long as people are looking, again, at a forgotten war? Well, only if after a week he leaves and they look away again.
