[Earl poses with Colbert.]
(Photo: Blumenauer reps.)
(Photo: Blumenauer reps.)
Portland’s bike-loving Congressman, Earl Blumenauer, appeared on the hit Comedy Central show, “The Colbert Report” last week.
Blumenauer was part of the popular “Better Know a District” segment where Stephen Colbert profiles districts and the member of Congress who represents them.
Colbert introduced Blumenauer to a nationwide audience as “Democrat and bicycling enthusiast,” and then went on to tell Blumenauer that his “obsession with bicycling borders on the interesting.”
[Nice product placement.]
Blumenauer’s Trek Portland bicycle just happened to be leaning up against a wall in the background during the interview.
Check out clips from the interview here.
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That Trek Portland looks like it’s never been rode before…
Jonathan, It looks like the whole clip is posted on youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ucbLZDnBAms&search=blumenauer
Oh Dat, you’re just jealous because of all the big fuss they made over Blumenauer owning the “first” Trek Portland, when it could have been you…
Thought Blum and Colbert were great, and the “boarders on the interesting” bit was spot on hillarious.
It’s sad that a bike with an Ultegra/105 mix is a political prop rather than getting ridden, but it’s for a good cause.
Crankers, Earl rides all the time. The dude is legit. His bike is not a prop…it just happens to be with him wherever it goes so it ends up being one!
If that’s the case, I need to get some tips from Blumenauer on my bicycle cleaning regimen. Or did he insert funding for the DoD to develop a mud/grease/grime deflecting substance that he is now field-testing? If so, I can’t wait for the civilian product release.
i’m at work so can’t watch. did the bow tie merit comment? bow ties drive me crazy in a bad way, but blumenauer more than makes up for it in, you know, the issues.
They filmed the interview a couple of months ago and didn’t air it until today. I think he had just gotten the bike then so, yes, it looks new.
What’s the need to slam Blumenauer because his bike is clean? Why is it so hard to believe it’s new, jeez. Someone has a chip on their shoulder or are trying to be funny and not doing a very good job.
Politics is theater, and if Earl weren’t considering at all times how to place visual and verbal queues into his media exposures, I’d want another representative: a professional… Well, if I lived in his district I would. How Colbert is funny is that he turns that political need and desire on it’s head and ridicules it. The cleanliness of the Trek made me think it was a prop and observe not that Earl was an evil hypocrite, but that it was sad to see decent components sit in a Senate office for the cause of setting a visual frame. I stand corrected, although I demand corroborating pictures involving Earl, a wet muddy pothole, and a bikini clad Donna Rice.
Relax, Earl has faced much more vicious political attacks than the accusation that his Ultegra front derailleur is too shiny. For political purposes, the shinier it is the bike is, the better it does “the cause” anyway. Consumer/Americans like new and gleaming products. They won’t have an attraction to a greasy/sweaty Earl and bike outside of a situation where it fits an archetypical image they expect and approve of.