If life imitates art, then the liberal vision of a post-Obama order is setting itself up to be a pitiable knockoff of The Court Jester, with Stephen Colbert playing an unfunny version of the lead. Danny Kaye is spinning in his grave.

This became clear when Colbert, who will be taking over the Late Show from David Letterman, had Hillary Clinton on his show in what was an infomercial for Clinton’s memoir of her time as secretary of state (via Ace of Spades). Colbert not only was transparently worshipful and dreadfully tedious, but by the end of it he was lurching out of character. It’s painful, but I highly recommend watching it (embedded below) to get a sense of how the left’s cult of personality intends to replace its current false prophet with its next one.

I think Ace gets it right when he comments:

The only funny thing here is what I imagine will happen in the future. If Colbert gets asked about this horrific thing, he’ll say of Hillary, “She was a good sport.”

But “a good sport” implies you were taking cheeky shots on her.

We don’t say someone is “a good sport” about taking three minutes of hero-worship and political promotion.

Indeed. The point of the skit is to merely recite the names of people Clinton met on her global Instagram tour, dutifully recorded in her memoirs by her “book team.” (Clinton must have been impressed with herself anew when she finally got around to reading her book.)

But it’s completely unclear why this is even a subject for Colbert to “send up”–though no sending up was done, of course. Hillary Clinton has been in public life for two decades on the national stage. There are certainly, as there would be with any such public official, moments in her past that could be both humorous and flattering. But Colbert–a comedian, supposedly–doesn’t want humorous. He just wants to deliver the flattery.

A skilled liberal comedian could even use material in Hillary’s past that would normally be controversial and find a way to cleverly turn it around in her defense. Chris Christie, for example, has permitted his weight to be the subject of endless jokes he’s participated in, including with late night hosts, proving both that he can take a joke and also that his aggressive personal style does not make him unrelatable or overly imperious.

But no such moments will even be mentioned by the jesters of our age. I am not sure this helps Clinton at all. The message is, after all: There is nothing funny about Hillary Clinton. But would it be too much to ask for there to be something funny about America’s comedians? I imagine we’ll still get the occasional Onion story about leftists’ American idols, at least.

I do wonder about Colbert’s audience. They were laughing throughout the “sketch,” but they couldn’t possibly have actually found the material funny, at least not to that degree. Is it now not only required of leftist comedians to pretend to make jokes, but for liberals in the presence of their leader to not dare refuse to laugh? This is all quite pathetic, though I suppose not too surprising.

Danny Kaye’s jester was pretending to serve the king while plotting to undermine him. Stephen Colbert’s jester is pretending, in character, to undermine his queen while plotting to serve the palace faithfully. Only one of them, however, is truly a fool.