The TV Column: Lisa de Moraes on Letterman/Palin vs. Colbert

Stephen Colbert's Iraq campaign didn't pass ratings muster. (By Mike Glasch -- Comedy Central)

Unfortunately, the Letterman-Palin kerfuffle seems to have taken attention away from Colbert's week-long visit to soldiers in Iraq, which reportedly had been conceived as a way to draw attention to the troops still overseas.

According to Nielsen, about 1.4 million people watched Colbert from Iraq last week. That is fewer viewers than he had the last time his show was live.

Colbert's visit to Iraq also seems to have sent some of his younger fans fleeing. The median age of his audience last week was 40. The same week a year ago, it was 33.9.

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The infamous "apology" phone call between Evil Spencer Pratt and all-suffering Lauren Conrad on MTV's "reality" series "The Hills" was completely made up, Conrad told the stunned ladies of "The View" yesterday.

Yes, Spence actually did grovel on the phone for having spread rumors that Conrad was in a sex tape with her ex-boyfriend -- but Conrad was not on the other end of the call, she explained.

"Did you feel like it was a sincere apology when it came from him?" "The View" co-host Elisabeth Hasselbeck had asked by way of kicking things off. (She was referring to the scene in the most recent season's penultimate episode, in which Spencer was on the phone begging Conrad's forgiveness for the whole sex-tape rumor thing -- a plotline that had consumed the show since its third season.)

Awkward silence.

"To be perfectly honest," Conrad said, after an eternity, "I wasn't on the other line of that call. . . . That was filmed and I wasn't on the other end."

Cue stunned gasps by the View-ettes.

"What do you mean!?" stammered Hasselbeck.

"He lied?!" exclaimed Sherri Shepherd.