Stephen Colbert mocks critics of VP debate moderator Martha Raddatz

By Meredith Blake

Oct. 12, 2012 12 AM PT

Thursday night’s “Colbert Report” was taped a few hours before Rep. Paul Ryan and Vice President Joe Biden faced off in Kentucky, but that didn’t stop Stephen Colbert from weighing on in the debate.

After joking that “I haven’t seen it yet. Nor will I ever -- it’s a vice presidential debate,” Colbert claimed the incumbent vice president probably had something of an advantage going into the evening: “The key to winning one of these debates is lower expectations about your speaking skills, and Joe Biden’s been doing that for four years.”

Another problem for Ryan? “The liberal media fix is in,” Colbert argued. Case in point: President Obama attended the first wedding of debate moderator Martha Raddatz back in 1991, and she was therefore biased.

Conservative critics have been up in arms about Raddatz all week, and continue to cry foul even though her tough, pointed questions Thursday night earned high marks from most observers. Colbert pointed out the absurdity of their grievances with Raddatz as he usually does -- by taking them to their absurd conclusion.

He suggested that Obama might have bribed Raddatz with some high-end appliances.

“He knew that Panini press would pay off eventually for the running mate he hadn’t met yet. And for 20 years every time she’s made a Monte Cristo, you know she’s whispered, ‘I owe you, Barack Obama,’” he said.

Colbert also pointed out the fact that Raddatz actually divorced her first husband, who was a classmate of Obama’s at Harvard Law School, 15 years ago.

“What woman doesn’t love doing favors for her ex-husband’s friends?” he wondered.

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