With so many bending the knee, Colbert was the court jester we needed

Demonstrators protested the cancellation of "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" outside the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York on July 21.CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

So “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” was canceled “purely” for “financial” reasons. I believe this to be true, but the financial consideration was fear at Paramount and CBS of litigation and revenge-seeking from the Trump administration. However, I want to focus not on pettiness but on patriotism.

Thank you, Stephen Colbert, for using your monologues to draw attention, through humor, to what is happening in our country. If no so-called serious people — say, members of Congress or justices of the Supreme Court — dared to question an unanointed king, you stepped in as the court jester.

It’s said that comedy is tragedy plus time. Perhaps the tragedy is too ongoing for CBS to allow for the jokes and callouts to this administration that Colbert’s show provided.

Gayle Kelly

Cambridge