Northwestern University has yet to put an alum in the White House.  However, we’ve done something far more remarkable.  We have captured the world of political comedy with greater success than any of our academic rivals who have managed to carve their initials into the Oval Office woodwork.

This morning I watched the best fifteen minutes of television I have seen in a VERY long time.  Stephen Colbert joined John Heilemann on Morning Joe.  The satirist and the commentator reduced the host, Joe Scarborough, into a jiggling mass of joviality while I forgot to pack my sons’ lunches in the midst of my laughing fit.

Colbert’s brilliance reigns supreme this presidential season.  Heilemann appeared on Colbert’s eponymous Report and routinely appears on Morning Joe, where he weds wit to wisdom while he intersperses Latin (my favorite phrase de facto et de jure for example) into his punditry.  If you have not followed @JHeil on Twitter, you have missed a true treat for your funny bone and your brain.

Wildcats’ purple reign stretches across the Atlantic.  In Amsterdam, ‘Pep’ Rosenfeld (once upon a time known as Jon) and Gregory Shapiro take down the great and the good with their form of improvised immolation on stage and on air.   Whose writing helped us to laugh at the 2000 election debacle on Saturday Night Live?  Rosenfeld’s.  Where did wildcat Seth Meyers acquire the comical chops to sit behind the SNL newsdesk?  On stage with Rosenfeld, Shapiro, and yet another wildcat, Andrew Moskos, at Boom Chicago.

With our political efficacy decimated by sins of hubris, I’m proud of my alma mater‘s sense of humor.