Stephen Colbert Packs House, Is Asked to Leave

Taking his blowhard act to Congress, comedian Stephen Colbert told lawmakers he doesn't want Mexicans picking his tomatoes. And he expressed befuddlement that more Americans aren't clamoring to "begin an exciting career" in farm work.

A straight-faced Colbert testified in character Friday at a House hearing on illegal farm workers. He offered what he called his "vast" knowledge of the subject after spending a day on a vegetable farm in New York.

Colbert described his ordeal of stooping to pick beans as "really, really hard." As he put it: "It turns out, and I did not know this, most soil is at ground level."

He pleaded with Congress to do something about illegal workers because "I am not going back out there."

After his day on a farm, Colbert says, "I don't even want to watch Green Acres again."

Before his testimony, House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers told Colbert how happy he was that the comedian's appearance filled the hearing room. Then he tried to kick him out.

Conyers said he couldn't remember when a hearing drew such a crowd. California Democrat Zoe Lofgren guessed it might have been for the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

But then Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, asked Colbert to leave the room, saying: "You run your show, we run the committee."

Colbert said he was there at the invitation of subcommittee chairman Lofgren. Lofgren signaled that he should stay.

Conyers later withdrew his request.

In his opening statement, which Conyers noted afterward differed from the written remarks submitted to the committee, Colbert maintained the tongue-in-cheek conservative persona that marks his late-night comedy show "The Colbert Report."

"I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican," he said. "I want it picked by an American. And sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan, in a spa, where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian."

Colbert said he was happy to "use my celebrity to draw attention to this important, complicated issue. I certainly hope that my star power can bump this hearing all the way up to C-SPAN 1"

He also offered mock solutions to the problem of overdependence on immigrant farm labor, suggesting the "obvious answer is for all of us to stop eating fruits and vegetables."

"And if you look at the recent obesity statistics, you'll see that many Americans have already started," he added.