stephen colbert vodka tamponCan somebody please tell me why Stephen Colbert is NOT running for president? Seriously. The man is a freaking genius. I mean, who else could take a shock-value story from a local news broadcast about vodka-soaked tampons and turn it into a piece of legitimate cultural relevance?

What's that? You haven't heard of the latest twist on substance abuse threatening to destroy our nation's youth? But everybody's doing it! Which means parents should start freaking out NOW.

Or as Colbert put it, "Yes! This is happening and it is everywhere! A high school security guard heard about it and that means it's true."

Hmmm ... can we say inflammatory fluff piece based on nothing?

"Nation, I wish I could say that this practice -- which is, again, everywhere in America -- is limited to teenage girls," Colbert continued.

"But as KPHO, Phoenix's news leader reports, this phenomenon is equal opportunity ... wake up America! Everyone is doing this! If you are with a teenage boy right now, chances are he has a vodka-soaked tampon in his butt!"

This is the brilliance of Colbert: Seemingly effortlessly, he takes whatever the media is hyping at the moment -- in this case, the vodka-soaked tampon epidemic -- and exposes it as a meaningless bid for attention/votes/money/etc.

Because the ugly truth happens to be that without Colbert's irony and reason framing a ridiculous story like this one, there are just too many people out there who would watch the news and make an immediate jump to paranoid city:

Mom, have you seen my box of tampons?

That's it! I'm sending you to rehab!

Watch this clip and tell me: Don't you think our country would be in a more rational place if Stephen Colbert was president?