ave product x and we have product y. we are going to start with product x. the only thing i'll let you know is that it is an, affordable product. oh, i like that. let's move on to product y, which is a far more expensive product. whoaaa. i don't care for that at all. yuck. you picked x and it was geico car insurance and y was the competitor. is that something you would pay for year after year? i, i like soda a lot but for a change of pace...

>> stephen: tonight, has america become too partisan? or is that just what the other side wants to you believe? and our relationship with pakistan is on the rocks. so pretty much everything in pakistan is on rocks. then my guest singer regina

specter has a new album called what we saw from the cheap seats am i'll tell her what i saw from the skybox oment scientists say dinosaurs were skinnier than we think. well, the ones in the museum certainly are nothing but bones. this is "the colbert report." captioning sponsored by comedy central ( theme song playing ) ( cheers and applause ) >> stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen stlam stephen, stephen, stephen! stephen, stephen, stephen!

>> stephen: thank you, mindless zombies! welcome to the report. thank you for joining us. nation, you know, we have a complicated relationship with pakistan. it's sort of a love hate relationship. they love to hate us. wnd and we hate that we have to love them. (laughter) >> stephen: still they are a valuable ally in the global war on terror. that's why i'm so up set to hear about the end of a crucial national security operation in the heart of islamabad. jim? >> the u.s. embassy in pakistan ending funding for a local version of "sesame street". the move comes amid reports of corruption at the 20 million dollar project. >> stephen: $20 million of corruption on "sesame street". i believe congress needs to hold hearings and ask some tough questions. what elmo know and when elmo know it! (laughter) now folks, this show called

sim sim hammara has already been in production in pakistan for a year and was created with a grant from the united states agency for international development with the goal of improving education and increasing tolerance. it was our most successful deployment of a puppet in the region since hamid karzai. (cheers and applause) >> stephen: but very life like. very life like. but an investigation of corruption has been launched thanks to a tip between a state department telephone hotline. although it did take a long time for that hotline to get answered. >> bring. >> oh, bring. >> stephen: now according to pakistani press reports, the corrupt puppetears or

corrupte teers behind sim sim hammara were using u.s. money to pay off old debts and awarding lucrative contracts to relatives. and that's not all, folks. the report has this exclusive undercover footage of the corruption in action . (speaking foreign language). >> stephen: we caught elmo red handed. folks, that guy is bad news. not only has he been linked to state-sponsored terrorism, he's also been linked to ape sponsored terrorism. i hope this mess gets cleared up soon. our pakistani puppet program is too important for national security. remember, that is how we found osama bin laden.

first we asked the children of abbotta does bad, who are the people in your neighborhood, and it turns out that one of these things was not like the others. (laughter) now nation, it's no secret that i'm not a fan of the "new york times". i cannot trust a paper that thinks that this is a-- no, it's not this is a t. and what are those extra parts? hmmmm, where have i seen that before? aha!! now just check out, folks, just check out how deep in the tank these guys are for barack obama. just today they did a hit job on mitt romney in the home section. look at that. the candidates next door, front page, above the fold, massive article, slamming mitt romney's $12 million mansion in la jolla, california. for which the times devoted

several days of interviews with about a dozen of mitt's neighbors learning all the salacious details like the elderly woman next door complains that her car is constantly boxed into her driveway. oh no, mitt kept a cranky old lady from driving? now who will plow into our farmers markets? (laughter) the article-- the article goes on to say that down the street a widow grouses that her children's favorite dog walking route has been disrupted. a widow? oh, thank you for that by no means emotionally man i latif detail, "the new york times". what's wrong o couldn't you find a blind orphan for him to have tripped? (laughter) besides, what is she complaining about. if her dog needs to go out, mitt will be more than happen to-- happy to strap it to the roof of his car. now folks-- i can't believe

this. most of these complaints are over the massive renovations that romney is doing to his property. but guess what, old gray lady, nobody likes the guy getting renovations donement but afterwards it looks nicer and property values go up. so get over it allen. my dumpster will be off your patio by september. and folks, mett's to the doing much here, he's just installing a car elevator. it's a standard renovation like adding a wine cellar or a trampoline room or a wine trampoline. it's not news, no. what's news is what the times thinks is news, quote, a young man in town recalled that mr. romney confronted him as he smoked marijuana and drank on the beach last summer demanding that he stop. they're trying to make mitt romney seem like officer buzzkill. oh, mean old mr. romney on

the corner won't let you smoke your doobies. that guy should be graceful-- grateful, a mormon republican running for president, sees you smoking weed and doesn't nark you out to the cops it is? who are guarding him? i would say that makes mitt romney hellachill. i don't know why hasn't he been endorsed by high times. (laughter) the only thing, the only thing this article proves is that every section of the "new york times" is out to get mitt romney. i mean just look at today's style section. putting together the perfect look that screams jerk. or just look at dining in, romney puts sill ant ro on his guocamole, what an [bleep]. but i don't know, i don't know, i don't know, i don't know, folks. i shouldn't be surprised, i

guess. this country has never been more divided. a recent poll by pew research found that americans are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the last 25 years. i just can't take it anymore. how did we end up here. where is our sense of community. that recognition of our shared values that we had during world war ii that allowed us to come together as a nation and in turn inter those japanese americans. isn't there something, anything that all americans request agree on? well, folks, i may have found it. it's this video of a tea cup pig named hamlet, going down the stairs for a bowl of oatmeal. and it may be the most important piece of footage you see this year. jim. >> oatmeal. >> come on, hamlet.

>> stephen: oh, he wants that oatmeal so bad but he's too afraid. come on, hamlet, come on, we believe in you. come on, buddy oment one step at a time. you're doing it. eye of the tiger, hamlet. don't give up now. you're so close. all the way, and-- , and-- come on right in the bowl! oh, how about it! (cheers and applause) >> stephen: eat your heart out o hamlet, you can do it! oh, folks, i don't think i'm overstating it. when i say that today we are all hamlets. -- folks, i don't know about you but that little pig is so adorable i'm going have trouble eating my sunday bacon. which you know is probably exactly what the vegans want. oh my god t is nothing but a

liberal anti-meat propaganda! i should have flown it when they ended it with a heart healthy whole grain breakfast, wait, weights, wait, no, wait what am i saying. it is just an innocent video of an adorable pink pig trouncing over long odds. pink? hamlet's a guy's name. that's a gay pig. they've done it again! is nothing safe from the homosexual agenda, even my pork sauceage? no, no, no, no, no, i'm sorry, no. no. no, no, no no. pull it together, colbert. it's just a pig eating at a little trov just like welfare queen sucking at the government teets. and notice he's being helped down the stairs am i'm surprise the government didn't mandate a pig wheelchair ramp. pick yourself up by your own hoove straps. i guess i was wrong, folks, what i thought was a cute little pig is just another

symbol of the international socialist conspiracy just like that hang in there cat. we get t you want the rest of us to pay for your rescue with a taxpayer funded fireman. get a job, fluffy. we'll be right back.

>> welcome back, everybody. my guest tonight is a singer/songwriter, pianist who was born in the soviet union. i said pianist. please welcome regina specter. (cheers and applause) regina, hey, lovely, lovely to see you, thank you so much for coming on. >> thanks so much for having me on your show. >> stephen: well, i'm a big fan. we all love you hear. your voice is incredible. you play beautifully. i heard the new album. it's incredible. let me ask you something about the title of the album. it's called what we saw from the cheap seats. i am fascinated by that title because i have never sat in the cheap seats. i'm usually orchestra pit, three rows back on the aisle, because i don't like the first two songs, i leave.

what dow mean from the cheap seats what is that. >> i think you see a lot from the cheap seats. are you very panned out. >> stephen: you see the back of everybody's head. >> you have a good perspective. >> stephen: are things go on up there in the nosebleed section that i would want to be a part of. >> yes, yes, i think it's something everyone should be a part of. it's the 99% up there. >> stephen: really? >> (cheers and applause) >> yes. >> stephen: okay. well, let me ask you about that whole attitude. because i'm not sure whether to trust you. okay. and i will tell you why. is that first of all let's start with your name. regina specter, okay. that literally translates queen goat. you sound like a sexy bond villain. and there's a reason, there is something behind that, you realize, that you were born in the soviet union. >> yes. >> stephen: okay. how i do know you're not a spy? >> how do you know i'm not come here to take american

jobs. >> stephen: exactly. >> well. >> stephen: exactly. how old you were when you came to the united states. >> i was nine and a half. and we went to immigration with my parents and a bunch of relatives. and it was actually really exciting. immigration is, i think, traumatic for adults and really exciting for kids. >> stephen: really? >> yeah. >> stephen: would you recommend all families change countries. >> i would definitely recommend traveling to places where you don't understand anything. >> stephen: did you speak english when you came here. >> no, not a word. >> stephen: dow speak russian now. >> yeah, yeah. >> stephen: you still speak russian. >> and i love reading it. i feel really lucky because i get to read all the great literature in the original and i really love the music, the old bards and everything. >> stephen: they take their music very seriously in russia. >> yeah. >> stephen: what is it-- if you would have stayed there, what would you sound like, do you think would you hav have-- would you be like tied to the classical he poneo. >> it's hard to know because the reason why i stopped

playing classical muss sick not necessarily because i wanted to, it's just i wasn't sort of built for it. >> stephen: what are you build for? >> i am built for rock 'n' roll, man. >> stephen: are back in 9 ussr, do you ever play that. >> i'm going back. >> stephen: you're going back. >> for the first time since i left in 1989. >> stephen: wow. >> this summer. >> stephen: so you gathered enough information in your-- someone from the old country called you up and used the trigger word. (laughter) pumpkin patch, like must go to moskow. so are you nervous about going back? >> you know, i'm excited. i've always been kind of nervous to go back but i was, you know, at a certain point it got to where it was just silly it was like i have to

go back and play for the people, especially to go as a musician and see who my audience, i don't know, i don't even know if i hav

here performing off her album, regina specter. ♪ ♪ i must have left a thousand time ♪ ♪ but every day ♪ because there's a small town in my mind ♪ ♪ how i can leave without hurting everyone that made me ♪ ♪ how i can leave without hurting everyone that made me ♪ ♪ oh baby baby

♪ ♪ i wish you wouldn't have broke my camera ♪ ♪ quus ir's going to get old real toon ♪ ♪ they were younger ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ stop stop ♪ what's the hurt ♪ coming on baby ♪ thought you ought to know by now ♪ ♪ i thought you ought to know by now ♪ ♪ everybody not so nice, nice ♪ ♪ everybody not so nice nice ♪ ♪ nice nice oh gabbie baby,

baby baby ♪ ♪ baby baby baby ♪ baby, baby, baby ♪ baby ♪ on the phone ♪ ♪ i must have left a thousand times ♪ ♪ but there's a small town in my mind ♪ ♪ how i can leave you now ♪ everybody that made me ♪ how can i leave without hurting everyone that made me ♪ ♪ whooo ♪ how i can leave without hurting everyone that made me ♪ ♪ how i can leave without hurting everyone oh how i can leave without ♪ ♪ hurting everyone that made me ♪ ♪ oh how i can leave without ♪ ♪ hurting everyone that