Comedy Central host Stephen Colbert defended Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley's Twitter style on Tuesday night, calling it "tough to understand" but "avant-garde."
"I believe Grassley's just proving that he's a fiscal conservative by refusing to buy a vowel," Colbert joked.
Grassley, who writes his own tweets and typically cuts corners when it comes to spelling and full sentence structure, inspired Colbert to change his own tweeting style.
"This isn't just tweeting. This is avant-garde, stream of consciousness poetry. It's Jack Kerouac typing 'On the Road' with his thumbs!" Colbert said.
A Grassley tweet last week that called President Obama "stupid" for challenging the Supreme Court caught the eye of the media, as well as Obama's campaign. Senior adviser David Axelrod shot back that a 6-year-old must have taken over Grassley's account to send such a "foolish" tweet.
"I love tweeting, but I don't like to type," Grassley explained of his Twitter style to the Legal Times last week. He also blamed autocorrect on his iPhone for some mistakes. Grassley has gotten into trouble for misspelling names — such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) — in the past.
"I probably type and hit send a little too quickly," Grassley admitted.
But Colbert credited Grassley with starting a whole new style of tweet, launching a hashtag with a tweet sent during his show: #IGottheTweetsLikeGrassley
The hashtag was immediately picked up by one member of Congress on Tuesday night. Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) tweeted that Colbert found "dadaist genius" among Grassley's tweets.
Colbert has continued to use the hashtag since the show aired Tuesday night.
