Well, not really.

But if you Google the phrase "greatest living American", Stephen Colbert's name will no doubt be the top- (or one of the top) ranking link. This is because he asked his fans, a nationwide viewing audience of millions, to get him there by Google bombing his name in their blogs and websites. On the 400th anniversary of Gallieo Gallila's telescope, and what would have been the space shuttle Discovery's "Colbert Mission", I decided I had enough of Stephen Colbert's shameless, albeit funny, self-promotion, and thought this would be a great time to declare myself, little old me, the greatest living American, if for no other reason to make a point.

We have created a monster

Stephen Colbert is a funny and amiable guy, don't get me wrong. But I think it's kind of stepping out of the boundaries of humor and into the realm of shameless self-promotion to use your television show, which is seen by millions, to task your fans to make you even more famous than you already are. Stephen Colbert's latest assignment for his fans was to have them flood ("bomb" as he calls it, although spam is more accurate) NASA's website with votes for him in NASA's contest to choose a name for the International Space Station's newest wing. Whoever got the most votes would be declared the winner.

Obviously since you or I or thousands of schoolchildren everywhere do not have a cadre of hundreds of thousands of fans to do our bidding, he was a shoo-in, winning the contest since he had the most votes. NASA did the decent thing and did not name the ISS' new wing The Stephen Colbert Wing - Instead it named it Tranquility, and gave Stephen Colbert a "consolation" prize, naming its new treadmill after him: COLBERT (and acronym for TCombined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill).

When NASA rejected Stephen Colbert's votes on principle, a US congressman (Chaka Fattah (D-PA)) even got publicly involved, asking NASA to honor its promise to award the name to whoever got the most votes, saying he won "fair and square". There's so much wrong with that one I won't even write about it. NASA invited Stephen Colbert to the flight, which was subsequently scrubbed because of bad weather, but he was too busy to attend.

There was also the case when Stephen Colbert (either him or one of his peeps) submitted the word "truthiness" into Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Anyone can submit words for inclusion into the online dictionary - I have. A very clever one, I might add, although I can't say what it is because it has my full name and town beside it.

Anyway, once again Stephen's fans voted his word the best and it was chosen Word of the year in 2006. He did not actually coin the word, as has been stated many times - This word was around as early as the 19th century, although Stephen Colbert did add the comedic definition to the word. The word "truthy" dates back to the 1800s and was recorded in the The Oxford English Dictionary, including a derivation of "truthiness." I am not suggesting that Stephen Colbert stole the word - I am just stating that he did not invent the word.

Link Bombing 101

Basically, link bombing consists of tons of people linking to one web page with a specific word or phrase, which results in the linked page coming up in Google search engines when anyone types the word or phrase used in the link bombing. Which is why, when you type "Greatest Living American", Stephen Colbert is the name at the top of the list, thereby making Stephen Colbert the greatest living American.

Pfft.

I have a good sense of humor but I really think this sort of activity stretches the boundaries of comedy for comedy's sake and borders on abuse of the system. But then again, I'm not a celebrity so maybe I am just writing all of this out of seething jealousy, since I am not 1/1,000,000,000th as famous as Stephen Colbert. Actually, I don't really care about fame - I think the internet is the great equalizer of sorts where anyone, rich, poor, anonymous or famous has an equal footing.

Unless of course you have a well connected legion of fans to do your bidding.