Some answers about the presidency of Stephen Colbert

From the article at abc.com:

No precedent exists for a television network promoting and fostering a candidacy of one of its own talk-show hosts, said Lawrence M. Noble, a former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. And comedian Pat Paulsen's 1968 candidacy predated current campaign finance regulations.

"The real problem comes in the fact that he actually has his own show, talking about his campaign, paid for by a network," Noble said. "These are the kind of things on slow days you'd debate until the late afternoon at the FEC, but there are serious questions that come up. In theory, he could end up having some campaign finance problems."

While he has talked about his candidacy publicly only in character -- as the combative faux-talk-show host who favors "truthiness" on "The Colbert Report" -- Colbert is taking formal steps that are consistent with an actual presidential candidacy.

This is Fox News' interesting addition to the above:

Colbert, who announced last week that he is running for president, is the choice of two percent of the Democrats nationally, according to reports.

And that — we kid you not — is good enough for fifth place in the Democratic primaries right now.

Otherwise, I cannot believe what is happening with the fires in California. Hope that this doesn't evolve into New Orleans of two years ago. The news now is that things are better than yesterday because of mysteriously beneficial winds and will be improved again tomorrow.

The quote of the moment:

"Yesterday, the firefighters were on defense. Now, they're able to go on the offense."