“Do conservatives not understand that Stephen Colbert is
joking?” said Steve Johnson in the Chicago Tribune. A new study
out of Ohio State University found that political leanings had a
predictable effect on whether undergrads took the “faux-foaming
right-winger” at face value or got his “deadpan satire.” The
study’s authors say it isn’t that conservatives don’t get the
joke—they think the joke’s on the liberals whom Colbert openly
pillories. (watch Stephen Colbert's anti-gay-marriage ad)  “Talk
about a vast right-wing conspiracy!” said Mande Wilkes in
FITSNews. If I have this straight, Republicans think Colbert is
using his right-wing “shtick” to “infiltrate and undermine the
leftist media” through a type of “dog-whistling”—only
conservatives hear the true humor. Did we need more proof that
the GOP is “way out of touch”?  What the study really shows,
said Lee Drutman in Miller-McCune Magazine, is that Colbert is
“so pitch-perfectly ambiguous” that people see in him a
reflection of themselves, like a “fun-hou