Okay, so it wasn't just me.
I told ya'll a few weeks ago that I had thrown in the towel and removed Saturday Night Live from the Tivo Season Pass. Well, since I'm not the only adult living in my house, it got mysteriously re-added. AverageSis (who is clearly still living in the Eddie Murphy glory days) made me (okay, made is a strong word) watch Saturday's episode, and yet again, they clapped on Obama.
This time was more thinly veiled as a dig at Clinton, but there's nothing lighthearted about the way Obama's being portrayed here. Watch this crap.
I've asked you guys a couple of times if you felt that SNL was crossing the line of political satire, and going all the way into full blown boosterism. The responses were tepid at best, prolly partly cause ya'll don't watch SNL (who does?) and prolly otherpartly cause I know lots of ya'll are gubbment workers and they don't play that soundcard stuff.
I feel your pain.
Still, I wondered if there was more to this whole "bash Barry" trend than just jokes. My main man G.F. (didn't wanna blast your gubb'ment name, homey) forwarded me this Minnesota Post article that breaks things down a bit more clearly.
In comedy, there's something called the "rule of three," which states that a concept, thrice repeated in slightly different form, creates an effective climax on the third beat.The article goes on to mention the political affiliations and donations of various SNL execs and cast members. Interesting stuff to say the least.
This weekend, "Saturday Night Live" had its third post-strike show, and for the third consecutive week poked Barack Obama and propped up a Hillary Clinton campaign meme. The most recent effort extended Clinton's now-famous "3 a.m." ad — the one that suggested Obama's too green to be commander in chief — to 3:02 a.m., when a swearing, smoking President Obama desperately calls his former rival to receive her specific instructions on handling a foreign-policy crisis (and relighting a balky White House furnace).
The usual political japery? Perhaps — except some news organizations credit SNL for shaming the media into tougher coverage of Obama. That achievement followed SNL's first pro-Clinton salvo — a lacerating Feb. 23 debate parody in which reporters declare themselves so "totally in the tank" for the Illinois senator that one asks if he's "comfortable and needs another pillow." The sketch undergirded a key Clinton complaint — and she explicitly referenced SNL's work in a real debate three days later.
Over the next seven days, the Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) calculated that Obama was a dominant or significant factor in 69 percent of news stories — a campaign-season high — many of them negative. The epitome: the New York Times' Feb. 29 headline: "Are the media giving Obama a free ride?"
The show's creator and longtime Svengali, Lorne Michaels, has a lengthy political rap sheet, according to the Federal Elections Commission. He hasn't donated to Clinton or Obama, but given repeatedly to the other beneficiary of the Obama takedown: John McCain. Michaels gave $1,000 to McCain's campaigns in 2000 and 2004, and in 2007 donated the statutory limit, $2,300. For good measure, Michaels donated $1,000 in 2006 to the Arizona senator's political action committee, Straight Talk America, which regifted the money to Republicans nationally to build up McCain chits.Hmmmm. I smell a Grand Hu$tle here.
Another McCain fan is Robert Wright, the chairman and CEO of SNL's owners, NBC-Universal. Like Michaels, Wright donated to Straight Talk America — $2,000 in October 2005.
According to the FEC, SNL's most blatant Clintonista co-conspirators — Fey and her husband, Jeff Richmond, and the show's Hillary impersonator, Amy Poehler, and her husband, Will Arnett — have given nothing.
Now if I could just get AverageSis to modify that Season Pass...
Question: Has SNL crossed the line between political satire and political endorsement?
Live from New York, it's 'Hillary Night Live' [MinnPost]
