It's been a great week for Stephen Colbert—and it's only Tuesday! On Monday, New York magazine slapped him on their cover in honor of The Colbert Report's first anniversary. Scribe Adam Sternbergh looks deep inside Colbert's shtick and finds "the perfect spokesman for a political season." (Topical!)

At roughly the same time as the story was being proofed, Colbert's boss, Jon Stewart, made an official announcement that seemed entirely unnecessary for a standup comic-turned-fake TV newsman: He and Colbert would not, in fact, be running for office in '08. (Which apparently did wonders for Robin Williams's latest turkey, Man of the Year.)

And now this: AP is reporting on Colbert's latest bit of genius: The Stephen Colbert Museum and Gift Shop opened for one day in Colbert County, Alabama.

In honor of Colbert's best week ever, we took a page from Sternbergh's patented playbook, to create The Undulating Curve of Colbert Expectations.
[Image after the jump!]

• The Colbert Report debuts October 17, 2005

• Bringing Out the Absurdity of the News (Correction Appended), by Alessandra Stanley, The New York Times, October 25, 2005

• The Truthiness Teller, by Marc Peyser, Newsweek, February 13, 2006

• White House Correspondents' Dinner video, via Google, April 29, 2006

• The Colbert Report, by Morely Safer, 60 Minutes, April 30, 2006

• So Not Funny, by Richard Cohen, The Washington Post May 4, 2006

• Stephen Colbert Museum opens, closes doors same day, by Associated Press, October 10, 2006