We’ve come to expect brilliance from Stephen Colbert, especially whenever he ventures into actual 3D politics. But this ad from his SuperPAC is right up there with his roast of President Bush (and the stenographical Beltway press) at the 2006 White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

In the sixty-second spot, Colbert is more negative than a Newt in heat—he just comes out and says: Mitt Romney is a serial killer. No joke. Because if indeed, as Mitt brays, “Corporations are people, my friend,” then as Bain CEO, Romney has killed, repeatedly.

I must correct the above paragraphs and the headline: the ad is not technically, officially or legally Colbert’s. After he announced on Thursday that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for president of South Carolina, he passed his PAC, Making a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow, over to Jon Stewart, who re-christened it the Definitely Not Coordinating With Stephen Colbert Super PAC.

“You know how hard it is to give away your baby?” Colbert bemoaned  on This Week with George Stephanopolus on Sunday. “Now imagine if that baby had a lot of money.”

It is clear that Colbert knows how to talk like a candidate, specifically a certain front-runner. “Excuse me, George, I was talking,” he said at one point, and of the PAC ad in question, he claimed, “I have not seen this ad.” Colbert also took umbrage whenever Stephanopoulos referred to his “campaign” for president, explaining that he is not “campaigning” but forming an “exploratory committee.” “I’m a one-man Lewis and Clark.”

Explorer Stephen, of course, wholeheartedly believes that corporations are people, but when Stephanopoulos wouldn’t agree, Colbert went further than Mitt or even Newt would dare: “You won’t weigh in on whether some people are people? That’s seems kind of racist, George.”

As for the ad’s controversial contention, Colbert said, “I don’t know if Mitt Romney is a serial killer. That’s a question he’s going to have to answer.”

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