Better Know a District (also known as BKAD) was a recurring segment on The Colbert Report. It offered a humorous examination of a different United States congressional district in each segment and generally included an interview with that district's member of Congress.
Structure Each segment began with basic information about a specific district, such as history and geography, and sometimes a humorously bizarre event that happened there. The district is also almost invariably referred to as "fightin, as in the "Fightin' 11th". All segments featured an interview with its representative.
One comedic maneuver that Colbert commonly employed in these interviews, particularly when he interviewed Democrats, was to ask the representative a loaded question of either "George W. Bush: great president, or the greatest president?", or "the Iraq War: great war, or the greatest war?" When the interviewee tried to express their disapproval of Bush, Colbert usually stated that the only choice was between "Great or Greatest", and nearly always stated, "I'm gonna put you down for 'Great'." (He often referred to previous Democratic representatives whom he put down as saying Bush was a "great" president.)
After the interview, Colbert added the segment to "the big board", a map of the entire United States with district lines drawn; the new district, shown in sparkling gold on a blue background, was usually very difficult or impossible to see due to its small size. Though many districts were profiled, the map always looked largely vacant overall.
Reactions of interviewees Although the interviews intentionally showed most of the representatives in an unflattering light, the representatives' post-interview reactions have varied. Colbert's interview with Massachusetts Representative Barney Frank resulted in Frank lambasting the program (he was quoted on a later Report), while the interview with Virginia Representative Jim Moran pleased the congressmanhe told The New York Times that he thought Colbert "let [him] off kind of light.""Laugh, and the Voters Laugh With You, or at Least at You", The New York Times, Week in Review p.1, Feb. 26, 2006.
California Representative Brad Sherman appeared to be in on the joke.Stephen Colbert's Bipartisan Outreach Effort at Wonkette.com He claimed not to know that his San Fernando Valley district was home to the pornography industry, gave an apparently long and dull explanation of a tax proposal, and participated in the making of a "pornographic video" with Colbert and impersonated a robot.
The Washington Times published a story on the show stating that "several lawmakers said doing the spoof spot on 'The Colbert Report' on TV's Comedy Central actually has raised their profiles back home";Politicians relish comic's needling The Washington Times however, the Los Angeles Times has reported that due to the fact that many House members have "stumbled badly" during this segment, others are not risking "the price for looking stupid" and were passing up the opportunity to be on Colbert's Better Know a District.
On his November 7, 2006, show, Colbert lauded the fact that every one of the 28 actual congressmen whom he had interviewed by that point won election or reelection, which he claims to have been because they were given the "Colbert Bump".
Because of the way Colbert intentionally tried to skewer congressmen in his interviews, former Democratic Caucus chairman Rahm Emanuel advised his fellow Democrats not to appear on the show,'Colbert Report' is lawmakers' Siren , United Press International, Mar. 15, 2007 causing Colbert to make fun of Emanuel's advice on the show. Better Know a District segments subsequently began appearing much less frequently on the Report, suggesting many in Congress took Emanuel's advice. In January 2009, Colbert received what he jocularly claimed was a letter from U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and said he was cleared to begin interviewing congressmen once again. He began the 2009 season of Better Know a District by interviewing Republican congressman Jason Chaffetz instead of a Democratic congressman.
Following the 2010 congressional election on November 2, 2010, for the first time since the show began, a congressman who appeared on the Colbert Reports Better Know a District segment was not reelected in a general election (in fact, several). On November 3, 2010, Colbert ran a segment showing clips of those fallen friends called "We Hardly Better Knew Ye".We Hardly Better Knew Ye at ColbertNation.com
District count
Better Know a District began as a "435-part series", 435 being the number of United States congressional districts; however, on November 29, 2005, Colbert banned California's 50th district after his "friend" Randy "Duke" Cunningham, the 50th's representative, pled guilty to receiving over $2 million in bribes and resigned his seat. California's 50th is now the lone member of the "Never Existed to Me" category, and the map showing the United States' congressional districts now looks as if the district does not even exist. This brought the series to a "434-part series". After this, Texas's 22nd congressional district was retired on April 4, 2006, when Tom DeLay announced that he planned to leave Congress. Texas's 22nd was reinstated on June 8, 2006, with a fake interview in which video of DeLay in three previous interviews on other television networks was interspersed with questions from Colbert. The district was put back into retirement at the end of the segment.
In the show's first year, 34 districts were profiled.
The original district map lacked Michigan's Upper Peninsula. During a phone-in segment, a resident of Michigan's 1st, which includes all of the Upper Peninsula as well as a sizable portion of the northern Lower Peninsula, reported this absence. Colbert informed the caller that he lived in Canada and if it was not on Colbert's map, it was not a part of the United States. The Upper Peninsula was added to the map the next time it was shown.
During the interview with Eleanor Holmes Norton, Colbert established that the District of Columbia was not a state, and thus the District of Columbia was not a part of the United States. The Better Know a District map was updated with an asterisk notation to reflect this fact. Furthermore, the count of 435 districts does not include non-voting districts, such as the District of Columbia; however, this segment was included in the district count, filling in for California's 50th district's absence, restoring the total to 435.
After the 2006 midterm elections, Colbert was invited to a meeting of the incoming House freshmen at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. During this encounter, he brought his total of "better-known districts" from 36 up to 51 (including a British parliamentary constituency); however, he did not count these as installments, and the count picked up at 37 with the next regular installment. The show aired on December 12, 2006.
After completing the fourth installment on November 9, 2005, he quipped, "At the rate of one district a week, we should complete the series by February 2014." However, in February 2014 he was only on the 87th of 434 districts, leaving him 20% complete after 8.5 years. That rate would place the series completion date in April 2048, had the show not ended.
List of districts "Better Known" The districts covered in "Better Know a District" are shown below. Segment numbers are listed starting with the 37th installment as they no longer correspond to the actual number of districts profiled. The Washington Post has reprinted transcripts from segments of "Better Know a District".
Season 1 (2005) # District Guest Date aired Notes 1 Jack Kingston (R) October 18 2 Barney Frank (D) October 27 3 Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D) November 3 Included "Judge Tubbs," a fake judicial show; Tubbs Jones, a former judge, said she always wanted to have her own courtroom show. This segment was shown again when Jones died in 2008. 4 John Mica (R) November 9 5 Mark Udall (D) November 16 6 Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick (D) November 30 7 Jim Moran (D) December 6Virginia's 11th congressional district is highlighted on map 8 Major Owens (D) December 15
Season 2 (2006)