Stephen Colbert noticed last night that, when President Obama said he would look for someone with "empathy" to replace David Souter on the Supreme Court, the meme on the lips of all the Villagers (including Orrin Hatch) was that "empathy" was "code" for something -- most often "activist judges."

Wait -- isn't "activist judges" itself just code for "judges who don't rule the way wingnuts want"? Oh well.

In any event, Colbert manages to decode -- via a detour into the Star Trek universe -- the TRUE meaning of that invidious and insidious code word, "Empathy", which produces the anagrams "Meth Pay," "Ape Myth," and "Ham Type":

Which clearly means Obama plans to appoint a drug-addled evolutionist with swine flu.

Sounds as reasonable as anything we've heard from the Village.