Back in January, a hotly contested debate emerged on the pages of the CTlab's review, as myself, Mike, and a few others passionately debated a central issue of the day: Stephen Colbert's character on The Colbert Report.  On the show, Colbert plays a character named Stephen Colbert, described on Wikipedia as:

a "well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot", [he] is right-wing, egomaniacal, fact-averse ("factose intolerant"), God-fearing, and super-patriotic. He claims to be an independent who is often mistaken for a Republican, but uniformly despises liberals and generally agrees with the actions and decisions of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. This is evidenced by one of the questions that he asks of many of his guests: "George W. Bush: great President, or the greatest President?"

Now, news comes of a study done at Ohio State University, which reports that conservative viewers of The Colbert Report are more likely to not recognise that Colbert the character is, well, a character.  Conservatives are more likely to think that The Colbert Report is real, not a satire.