Tonight’s Colbert Report featured reporter Bob Deans talking about his new book The River Where America Began. Deans was talking about the early emergence of a sort of proto-democracy in colonial Jamestown, with the caveat that it’s not “democracy as we would recognize it,” since (among other things) “there was martial law, there was torture.” Colbert interrupts: “We wouldn’t recognize that.” Big laugh. Deans smiles slightly: “Not in America, no.” The audience cracks up again. I’m laughing too. And then, suddenly, I’m not, at all.