please welcome timothy garton ash. (cheers and applause) hey, mr. garton ash, thanks so much. the name of your book is called facts are subversive. political writings from a decade without a name. what dow mean facts are subversive? >> i mean exactly what it says. for example --. >> stephen: i don't know what it means, though. i mean i wouldn't have asked the question if i understood that. >> if we had met, the factses about saddam hussein, weapons of mass destruction, namely he didn't have any. >> right. >> britain would not have gone to war in iraq. maybe the united states would. >> stephen: i don't know. are the facts important there. because i have to be a fan of facts. because feeling is first. and it felt right to get saddam, did it not feel like -- seems like a bad guy, seemed dangerous. feels like take them down. later the facts subverted that good feeling. so what good are the facts? >> in subverting that good feeling. >> stephen: you want to make me feel bad. >> i want to make you feel bad. >> stephen: really. >> stephen: if you feel that way. i believe in the realit

timothy garton ash. the facts are subversive. we'll be right back. we'll be right back. what is that? oh, we call it the bundler. let's say you need home and auto insurance. you give us your information once, online... [ whirring and beeping ] [ ding! ] and we give you a discount on both. sort of like two in one. how did you guys think of that? it just came to us. what? bundling and saving made easy. now, that's progressive. call or click today.

(laughter) >> stephen: and my guest timothy garton ash believes reporting the facts can change the coursehistory. then again, so can wikipedia. a french couple has adopted a 265 pound gor la. and in tomorrow's news, a french couple is malled by newly orphanned gor la. this is "the colbert report." captioning sponsored by comedy central ( theme song playing )

we're pleased to have timothy garton ash back on this program. he's spending the summer at stanford university and he has in paper back his book which is called "facts are subversive" which we talked about when he published in the hard back. i'm pleased to have him back at this table. welcome. >> pleasure to be here. >> rose: let's talk about eece first. >> it could default andeave the euro. it could default and somehow stay in the euro. it could somehow fudge it so it doesn't que default but there's soft roover and a bit of bailout and a bit of austerity. nobody knows, but the important fact is that th crisis has been going on a very long time and there were no signs that the member stas of the european monetary union want to do what's really necessary which is to go another step forward, make a fiscal union which, in effect, means making more of a political union and that's the important fact. >> rose: so the need to go forward to make more of a political union, that's the important fact? >> well, listen, there's no effective monetary union in