Take a deep breath, Mark Halperin

By Richard K. Barry 

Big name political prognosticator Mark Halperin thinks Hillary Clinton has really done it now. Yes, he thinks this e-mail thing is going to make it impossible, sort of, for her to become president.

Speaking on This Week Sunday morning he said this:

What she’s doing here in terms of lack of response, lack of a sense of what people think of her, combined with what I thought was an extraordinarily weak performance at the Emily’s List speech the other day — her husband can get through this because he’s the politician of a lifetime. She cannot. If this is the way she’s going to run her operation, if this is her mindset, I don’t think she’s going to be president.

Of course Halperin didn't exactly say the e-mails would be her downfall, only that if her response to this is indicative of how she intends to run her campaign, she could be in trouble.

Not a particularly specific or interesting comment as far as I'm concerned, but pundits don't get paid for keeping their mouths shut.

Sure, if the e-mails yield new and damaging information, it'll be a problem. Otherwise, not so much. 

By the way, SNL pretty well nailed it.

Sarah Palin - still delusional after all these years

By Richard K. Barry

The Hollywood Reporter ran an excerpt recently from a new book about Saturday Night Live. It's actually an update of an old book. Live From New York is by James Andrew Miller and Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post television critic Tom Shales (due out in September). It adds a couple hundred pages of original material to an earlier history of the show, which came out in 2002, in order to bring things more or less up to date.

If you like this kind of stuff, enjoy. Entertainment industry navel-gazing doesn't really do it for me.

I did find a couple of comments by that half-term mayor somewhat amusing.

These were attributed to Sarah Palin: 

I think SNL is egotistical if they believe that it was truly an effect on maybe the public debate about who should lead the country in the next four years.

And:

I know that they portrayed me as an idiot, and I hated that, and I wanted to come on the show and counter some of that.

Well, who can say if a very popular nationally broadcast program that constantly pokes fun at the intellectual capacity of a given politician really has an impact. I've got to think it's probably not helpful to said politician.

As for the second comment, I didn't think she did all that badly on the show. Dumb as she obviously is, I gave her points for her appearance. I am, however, pretty sure she didn't counter anything.

All of which is really just an excuse to post a collection of Tina Fey's best Palin bits. Outstanding.

Sarah Palin: still an idiot

By Richard K. Barry

So, Sarah Palin decided to blast Washington insiders for having a night of fun at the White House Correspondents Dinner.

This was her Facebook post:

Yuk it up media and pols. While America is buried in taxes and a fight for our rights, the permanent political class in DC dresses up and has a prom to make fun of themselves. No need for that, we get the real joke.

And below is Sarah Palin appearing on Saturday Night Live before the 2008 election, yukking it up and making fun of herself. We too get the real joke, Sarah.

(You have to plow through a bit of Fox commentary to get to it, but it's there.)

As Homer Simpson says, "It's funny because it's true"

By Richard K. Barry

This is a clip from last night's opening skit on Saturday Night Live, in case you missed it:

SNL honors shooting victims with moving "Silent Night" opening

By Michael J.W. Stickings

"You're a Rat Bastard, Charlie Brown" was the comedic high point of this past weekend's Saturday Night Live (watch in the U.S. here, Canada here, elsewhere I'm not sure) but it was the opening that was truly moving, a children's choir singing "Silent Night." I'm not a religious man, but there was no better way for the show to honor the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre.

Thankfully, it's up at YouTube. (If it gets taken down, which would be a stupid move by NBC, you can watch it in the U.S. here and Canada here.)

If you missed it, it's really worth watching. Or just watch it again.

Undecided voters: The most important people in America

By Michael J.W. Stickings

In case you missed it, this is from the September 22 Saturday Night Live, hosted by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, which was on again this past Saturday.

Sure, the election's over, but this is still hilarious. Just as it will be in 2016 and as long as democracy maintains its tenuous grip on the American body politic.



And of course it reminded me of this classic scene from Family Guy: 
 

Laughing and crying with Victoria Jackson

By Frank Moraes

(Ed. note: I would note that Victoria Jackson seems to use Twitter as an Tourette-style outlet for her right-wing diarrhea. Among other things, she has been calling for secession: "Better to SECEDE than have a Civil War." Yes, the conservative mind in action. -- MJWS)

There is something in the water over at SNL and it ain't LSD. Or maybe it is. That would kind of explain the likes of Dennis Miller, Jon Lovitz, and especially Victoria Jackson. On election night, she had a bigger meltdown than most conservatives, claiming that she couldn't stop crying. And for good reason: "America died." On the badness scale, that is one notch below, "Music died." What especially sucks is there is no cool song to go along with it.

That evening Jackson also tweeted the now infamous, "Thanks a lot Christians for not showing up. You disgust me." Can't you just feel that Born Again love? You know what Jesus said, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who votes Democratic to enter the kingdom of God." So suck it all you America-hating commie bastards!

And in this vein, Jackson tweeted yesterday morning, "Obama's policies (communism) PUNISH the Responsible and REWARD the Irresponsible." This was following from a tweet last night in which she spread her Christian love:

Obama's policies (communism) PUNISH the Responsible and REWARD the Irresponsible.
— Victoria Jackson (@vicjackshow) November 13, 2012

Don't get the wrong idea here: Victoria Jackson is not racist. You know this because of that caveat. It's not that white people are better, it's just that they tend that way—statistically! It's just science. Like The Bell Curve. It's not like she wants to kill non-whites; they're just like Christians; you know: disgusting.

But perhaps we are too harsh on the once talented Ms. Jackson. She has known tragedy. Her first husband -- fire-eater Nisan Mark Eventoff -- left her, because it is apparently easier to swallow fire than Victoria's bullshit. And her two daughters are rumored to have died recently of extreme cases of shame and embarrassment. Jackson is apparently immune.

On her Twitter desciption, Victoria Jackson lists simply, John 16:33. For those of you not up on your Bible, John is the anti-Semitic Gospel. Not that I'm saying Jackson is anti-Semitic. Like most loon Christians, she probably loves the Jews because they are necessary to the Second Coming. After that they can burn in hell, of course. Anyway, here's the verse:

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

I'm fond of this verse, because it calls on Christians to chill the fuck out. And they used to! It is only recently that the Religious Right rose up and decided they should work to make their perfect biblical government here on earth. This is why they get so angry at the radical Islamists: they're competition.

I find it a little sad that Victoria Jackson could be doing all of this as an art form: political satire. It disturbs me that she is clearly not. She is all too typical of her species of born-again Christianity that seems to think Jesus was Joseph McCarthy plus magic tricks. Reading Jackson's comments is one of those rare activities where you truly don't know whether to laugh or cry.

(Cross-posted at Frankly Curious.)

Mitt Romney channelling Jon Lovitz on the auto bailout

By Richard K. Barry 

Jon Lovitz used to have this great routine on Saturday Night Live in the late 80s in which his character would tell the most outrageous lie and then punctuate the absurd claim with, "yeah, that's the ticket." It was hilarious because we have all come across people who make up shit and seem to think no one will notice. His pathological liar schtick was great.

Why was I reminded of that today? Hmmm. Well, Mitt Romney must be channelling himself some serious Jon Lovitz as he attempts to take credit for the bailout of the auto sector, something he vehemently opposed.

Romney's claim is based on the following statement, which he gave in a recent interview: "I pushed the idea of a managed bankruptcy, and finally when that was done, and help was given, the companies got back on their feet. So, I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that the industry has come back."

Really? Here's the problem, as the Associated Press summarizes:

The course Romney advocated differed greatly from the one that was ultimately taken. GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy on the strength of a massive bailout that Romney opposed. Neither Republican President George W. Bush nor Democratic President Obama believed the automakers wound have survived without that backup from taxpayers. Romney opposed taxpayer help.

In the now-famous editorial in The New York Times in 2008, Romney wrote, "If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won't go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed."

Well, that didn't happen.

I guess if you advise people to jump out of a burning airplane to save themselves, you might want to include the part about the parachutes or your advice would only be half right, with catastrophic results.

Yeah, Mitt Romney: "I'll take a lot of credit for the fact that the auto industry has come back. That's the ticket!"

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)

Mitt Romney and Saturday Night Live

By Richard K. Barry

I've watched SNL over the years but haven't turned it on consistently in a long time. I just don't think it's that funny. To be fair, it's always been hit or miss, even in the early "glory days." Mostly, I've always felt that the whole SNL exercise was about proving, from the perspective of the audience, that you were "with it," that you got the joke. These are hip young performers riffing on the events of the day and that combination, in itself, is supposed to be enough for us all to tune in and nod, if not laugh, knowingly.

Still, in politics, it's important to show that you're cool enough to get the joke. Hell, even Nixon went on Laugh-In to say "sock it to me."

So far, the producers of SNL and Mitt Romney haven't been able to schedule an appearance, though Romney says he's open to the idea and SNL says the door is open, maybe in the fall.

As The Hill writes, "[t]he show frequently satirizes political elections, and can have a big impact cementing pre-existing narratives about the nature of the election and the candidates themselves."

If I were advising Romney, would I advise him to do the show? I'm not sure, but probably yes. What would they do, what kind of gag? Perhaps it would be something on his stiffness, his uncoolness, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Romney's team is slowly coming around to embracing their candidate's fundamental lack of charisma as a strength. You know, he's the prudent manager, the other guy is the rock star. Who do you want managing the economy?

I could see some very funny possibilities for a skit with that idea. In the grand scheme of things, Romney's best shot at humanizing himself has to be in self-parody.

SNL is a pretty good stage for that sort of thing. There, that's my advice, Mitt. Where do I send my bill?

Just for fun, here's Tricky Dick on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In (Sept. 16, 1968). What a card.

(Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)