Where’s Stephen? On Wednesday, fans eager to attend a taping of “The Colbert Report” were shocked to learn the show had been abruptly canceled. The situation turned to one of mass withdrawal symptoms Thursday as the show still didn’t return; Comedy Central issued a terse announcement that the show was shut down due to “unforeseen circumstances.” It was the first time in the show’s seven-year history that it’s had to cancel taping.

Questions continue about whether Colbert and his nation will return Monday (the show doesn’t tape Fridays). The leading theory is that the sudden hiatus has to do with the host’s 91-year-old mother. The Wall Street Journal reports that “people familiar with the show” attribute the sudden suspension of production to “an emergency in Mr. Colbert’s family.”

Whatever the cause, it’s impressive that Colbert has managed for so long to keep a respectable degree of privacy around his off-screen persona and family life. His colleague Jon Stewart trades in daily snark too, but mingles it with intense sincerity — for proof, look no further than Stewart’s interview Thursday with Education Secretary Arne Duncan, and the way the schoolteacher’s son from New Jersey made the conversation eminently personal.

Stephen Colbert, in contrast, the youngest of 11 children, the boy who grew up in South Carolina pronouncing his last name with a hard “t” on the end, nightly slips easily into the guise of Stephen Colbert, bespectacled, vaguely French sounding, super PAC-starting conservative blowhard. He’s spent his Comedy Central career deftly creating a knowing caricature, a man whose absurdity isn’t just brilliantly funny, it’s also a hell of a disguise – one that has no doubt afforded him and his family a degree of insulation from his larger-than-life persona.

A mysterious and sudden halting to a successful television show is always newsworthy. But this week, his silence has also made clear how deeply viewers depend on the show for a nightly dose of satire in a sea of political and religious insanity. Just the night before the show went dark, the Catholic Colbert was raising hackles for citing “Obama’s vengeful crusade against the Catholic Church,” and noting, “Vengeful crusades? Kind of our thing.”

It’s clear already that television without Colbert – even for a mere two episodes – creates a keenly felt absence. But a guy absurd enough to wear star-spangled pants also knows that there are moments in real life when the best thing you can say about what’s going on is nothing at all.

Last night on “The Colbert Report,” Stephen Colbert checked in with the Republican candidates for president and took stock of the nominating contest. The verdict: It’s been a weird few days for the Republican Party, huh? Mitt Romney, who looked like the inevitable nominee after a pair of victories, found out on Thursday that he never actually won the Iowa caucuses. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, the man best positioned to seize the momentum and defeat Romney in tomorrow’s South Carolina primary, faces some hash allegations from his second wife, Marianne. What else? Rick Perry dropped out of the race, and proceeded to endorse Gingrich anyway. And Rick Santorum said something weird about couches.

This past Thursday, Stephen Colbert handed over control of his much-publicized super PAC to Jon Stewart in order to explore a run for the Republican nomination. Over the weekend, the PAC began showing a campaign ad in South Carolina that equates Mitt Romney with a serial killer, based on his work at Bain Capital. Did Colbert go too far? Well, of course not, because, as he pointed out on his show last night, election law prohibits him from coordinating with the PAC. So, clearly, Colbert (like all the rest of the candidates who just happen to have the support of super PAC money) remains helpless to stop his former organization from continuing to air its ads about “Mitt the Ripper.” Totally helpless. Right?

What to do if you’re Stephen Colbert? The “Report” host is surging in Republican primary polls (despite not being an actual candidate) and the temptation to explore a run for president grows larger by the day. The problem, however, is that candidates are prohibited by federal election law from operating a super PAC, which Colbert very publicly does.

Donald Trump announced yesterday that he would no longer moderate of the upcoming Newsmax Republican debate, thus ending weeks of back-and-forth that saw every candidate except Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum withdraw from the event. Of course, Trump didn’t quit because his presence at the debate risked descending it into some sort of bizarre media sideshow — no, no — but because he refused to rule out a third-party run for president. Right.

With less than a month until the Iowa caucuses, the race for the Republican nomination is finally headed to the voting booth, where rank-and-file party members will make the choice, presumably between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. The  stakes never higher, serious Republicans no doubt hoped that the theatrics that characterized the early stretches of the nominating process would recede into the background. Unfortunately for them, Donald Trump has gotten himself a debate.

Predictably, establishment conservatives like George Will and Karl Rove are incensed at the prospect of a Trump-moderated debate. Stephen Colbert, meanwhile, has his own bone to pick with the hotel tycoon, and last night he dusted off his best Donald impression to do it: