Stephen Colbert Is Dead. Long Live Stephen Colbert.

“The Colbert Report,” which is ending its nine-year run on Comedy Central on Thursday so that host Stephen Colbert can take over the “Late Show” when David Letterman retires in May, is thought of as a political show, and with good reason. Colbert’s faux-commentator character, a “well-intentioned, poorly informed, high-status idiot” as (the real) Colbert called him, was a brilliant lampoon of not just “Papa Bear” Bill O’Reilly, but, in a larger sense, the entire political media establishment, and its inability not only to get anything done, but to even have even a cogent conversation. Almost every time I watch either Fox News or MSNBC, I see people who still aren’t quite in on Colbert’s joke.

The character was surprisingly pliable: Early critics worried that the TV Stephen was drawn so narrowly that he would inevitably grow one-note over the lifespan of a daily news show, but Colbert always kept the character moving and organic. And the reason for this, and the reason the show was so amazing—yet probably had to die at some point—was Colbert himself. The real one. Every year, the Colbert character faded a little bit more, and the real Colbert emerged. And this Colbert was wonderful.