Stephen Colbert Boston Marathon: Watch Colbert's Masterful Monologue, Tribute To People Of Boston In Wake Of Bombings

In the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, Stephen Colbert mixed eloquence, humor and patriotism in his opening monologue to remind us all why we let him become such a huge part of the zeitgeist in the first place. His rousing opener covered the pilgrims, terrorism, the marathon and American exceptionalism in a neat little package that will stir the hearts of even the most begrudgingly American.

Check out the video here.

Choice quotes:

"They attacked the Boston Marathon. An event made of people who run 26 miles on their day off until their nipples are raw for fun.

"For Pete's sake, Boston was founded by the pilgrims. A people so tough they had to buckle their goddamn hats on."

"Whoever did this obviously did not know about the people of Boston. Because nothing these terrorists do is gonna shake them. ... A city that withstood an 86-year-losing streak. A city that made it through the Big Dig - a construction project that backed up traffic for 16 years. I mean, there are commuters just getting home now."

Patton Oswalt had some similarly stirring commentary that he put into a Facebook post that went viral. The comedian wrote:

"Boston. F*cking horrible.

I remember, when 9/11 went down, my reaction was, "Well, I've had it with humanity."

But I was wrong. I don't know what's going to be revealed to be behind all of this mayhem. One human insect or a poisonous mass of broken sociopaths.

But here's what I DO know. If it's one person or a HUNDRED people, that number is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a percent of the population on this planet. You watch the videos of the carnage and there are people running TOWARDS the destruction to help out. (Thanks FAKE Gallery founder and owner Paul Kozlowski for pointing this out to me). This is a giant planet and we're lucky to live on it but there are prices and penalties incurred for the daily miracle of existence. One of them is, every once in awhile, the wiring of a tiny sliver of the species gets snarled and they're pointed towards darkness.

But the vast majority stands against that darkness and, like white blood cells attacking a virus, they dilute and weaken and eventually wash away the evil doers and, more importantly, the damage they wreak. This is beyond religion or creed or nation. We would not be here if humanity were inherently evil. We'd have eaten ourselves alive long ago.

So when you spot violence, or bigotry, or intolerance or fear or just garden-variety misogyny, hatred or ignorance, just look it in the eye and think, "The good outnumber you, and we always will.""

What do you think? Did Stephen Colbert do a good job with his History of Toughness/Boston? Did it make you proud? Is it too soon for jokes?

Sound off in the comments.