Important Question about Sarah Palin:
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Important Question about Sarah Palin:
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2) As regards Gov. Palin, it's weighted similarly to the question, "When did you stop beating your wife?"
Specifically, Palin having "...10 to 15 false alarms of Osama bin Laden driving a taxi."
But if my side loses, then they're a depressing sign of how mean this country has gotten and I'll wind up a bitter old man digging his fingernails into the armrests as I think about what the media have wrought.
But I'll vote for the debate by a wink.
Incidentally, I think their portrayal of Biden was pretty harsh as well, especially emphasizing the way that he (and other Democrats) have a tendency to try to relate to the American people by telling them how much their lives suck.
They're all hilarious and it's hard to choose. I'll give the edge to the interview, for the 'lifelines' gag.
It's structural: After that, Fey as Palin just can't be as funny.
But I'm with taney: Where's the bilious humor directed against Obama?
I think the problem with the debate is that most of the what was funny in the first skit and the second is kind of tired now.
I don't think I would call any of them not funny, I just think the Palin jokes are retreads after three skits and not all that original.
I did see the Bush, Pelosi, Frank press conference and that one was pretty funny-especially the jabs at Soros.
Taney, are you joking? Do you have a single shred of evidence to back up that statement?
McCain is usually the course of the almost-comedic false attacks. At least this is coming from people who recognize they are comedians...
This is not PDS (Palin Derangement Syndrome), unlike the ODS (Obama Derangement Syndrome) currently afflicting the right. It's just what she says and her mannerisms that are so funny and ripe for satire. Don't you find a VP candidate giving winks a little creepy?
Her confusion of the current commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan (Gen. David McKiernan) with a Civil War general (George B. McClellan) who refused to agressively fight is telling about her lack of knowledge about current affairs or American history. Calling Gen. McKiernan "McClellan" was a real insult to his military leadership.
Tina Fey satirizing Sarah Palin is no different than Darrell Hammond's portrayal of Bill Clinton. I'm sure you laughed at that. Further, the overall media's interest in Sarah Palin is driven by the very fact she brings up: she's not part of the Washington establishment. She was (and still is) completely unknown, unvetted by years of media coverage (unlike Joe Biden or John McCain). So the press is cramming into 8 weeks coverage that would normally have stretched out for years.
I voted for the interview, because it was substantially based on her own words. Regarding the teen marriage bit, even though the campaign has said that there will be a summer (and we know who will be holding the shotgun) wedding, I'll bet that if McCain-Palin loses, no wedding will occur, since there would be no political reason to have it. I know, you're shocked I viewed the announcement through a political lense. 'Tis the season.
Or Joe Biden making outrageous stuff up during the debates. Such as how the US and Bolivia had eradicated the worldwide drug trade and George Bush had let it return through his alienation of our former ally Chavez, or how the whole sub-prime mortgage mess can be traced to unauthorized options trades by Dick Cheney, or how Bush thinks that Article XI of the Constitution makes the President Commander-in-Chief when it really talks about the Right to Social Security (all of whose assets Bush wants to put in the sub-prime mortgage market).
Or Clinton asking Palin for advice about Chelsea's pregnacy. Should she have an abortion like the Bush twins have done? And Palin responding that Chelsea should have the baby, but Hillary should claim it was hers. And asking if the father was Bill? Why? Just asking, never mind.
That would be about as "funny"
If the shoe was on the other foot, we wouldn't be hearing platitudes about how "life happens." It would be more like this:
That's quite an understatement. And pay attention to who said it.
On a serious note, my hunch -- this is based on living in this country and being an acute observer -- is that criticism of a President Obama will be difficult as it will be met by accusations of racism no matter how well founded. OK, think I'm wrong, maybe I am, but check back with me June 20, 2009.
I also think with regard to Palin they should have done more on Maverick, because even though I support the McCain/Palin ticket I think I am going to gouge my eyes out if I hear either one of them use the term again.
Her confusion of the current commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan (Gen. David McKiernan) with a Civil War general (George B. McClellan) who refused to agressively fight is telling about her lack of knowledge about current affairs or American history. Calling Gen. McKiernan "McClellan" was a real insult to his military leadership.
Slips about names don't bother me all that much. She actually seemed to be aware of what she was saying he said, which to me is more important than getting the name right. After all Obama called McCain "Tom" during their debate.
As for having a clue about history-Biden didn't seem to realize who was president when the stock market crashed or that there wasn't a TV. And i am still waiting to find out when we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon. Obama is running to be president of all 60 states (because he had visited 57, still had one to go, and wasn't going to get to campaign in Hawaii or Alaska).
(Here, for merely one of the more blatant examples, another example is reflected in the contrast of Katie Couric's chummy, leading interview with Biden vs. Couric's interview with Palin; a viper, with a superficially earnest smile on her fact, is still a viper. But those are merely two blatant examples.)
Likewise and as others have noted, there's a dearth - there's a total absence - of funny and satirically revealing commentary when it comes to "The One," the beatified beneficiary of all this funny stuff.
I absolutely agree with this.
I think hard news criticism won't be difficult, but anything meant to be satire-SNL, the various other humor posing as news shows, late night TV, and editorial cartoons will have a very hard time. Some will brave the criticism and do it, but I suspect we are going to have at least 4 years of "racist!" cries if Obama wins the election.
What you're showing us is "one of the more blatant examples" of you being unintentionally funny. An email from an unnamed person who is "A READER AT A MAJOR NEWSROOM?" With no proof of authenticity, aside from taking Glenn Reynolds' word for it? Ha ha, that's a good one.
I almost spit soda through my nose at the Barney Frank impersonation.
What nonsense. You know, I grant that Couric was tougher on Palin than Biden, but (a) that's justified, given how little we know as to Palin's views on, or knowledge of, anything not related to Alaskan politics, and (b) it doesn't change the fact that Palin was revealed in those interviews to be a blithering idiot.
The link you're referring to, excerpt, from that reader at a major newsroom, emphasis added:
"Off the record, every suspicion you have about MSM being in the tank for O[bama] is true. We have a team of 4 people going thru dumpsters in Alaska and 4 in arizona. Not a single one looking into Acorn, Ayers or Freddiemae. Editor refuses to publish anything that would jeopardize election for O, and betting you dollars to donuts same is true at NYT, others. People cheer when CNN or NBC run another Palin-mocking but raising any reasonable inquiry into obama is derided or flat out ignored. The fix is in, and its working." I asked permission to reprint without attribution and it was granted."
Sneer away, then sneer yet again, but sneers are all you have. Hence the quality of your comment.
Asher,
No, it's not "justified" to have a friendly chat on the couch with Biden vs. a highly edited, tendentious "interview" with Palin. Within the scope of your own myopic vision, yes - but in the real world, not remotely so. Which is why your own "argument" is based upon nothing more than a sneer and a highly incurious sense as well.
As to Biden's mendacity and ignorance and out of touch sense, for starters, here and reflecting more directly on "The One," here. A very brief excerpt from the first of those two links, detailing the 14 lies of O’Biden:
OK, I get it now. If you take a completely uncorroborated claim from an unnamed, unknown source, it suddenly becomes credible if you post it using bold italics. How come no one ever told me?
And speaking of laughable sources, where did you get the wacky idea that anyone is impressed with links from protein wisdom and NR? NR has a clear track record of promulgating falsehoods (see here and here).
How could they have made fun of the Article I confusion? No one would get it because about 1% of the country knows which article is which. In order to make fun of it, they would have to have Ifill correct him. And that wouldn't even be very funny. Same thing with the restaurant. The audience doesn't know the restaurant is out of business, so they would have to tell us in some sort of way. And that wouldn't work. I mean, how would you script it? Like this?
Biden: When I go to Katy's restaurant in Wilmington...
Ifill: Katy's has been out of business for 26 years.
See, this is why law professors shouldn't comment on comedy.
In other words, SNL humor depends on the ignorance and disconnect from the lives of ordinary Americans that characterizes it's mostly left-wing audience.
Get a grip, man.
To the question: I seldom find anyone's satirical mockups all that funny. You can always tell who they're rooting for (SNL rooting for Hillary in the mock Obama-Clinton), but when anyone points out the obvious they're accused of being humorless and oversensitive. "Oh no, man, they skewered both sides equally." Usually, it degenerates to the overbroad stereotypes of high school skit night.
When I was in theater in my younger, socialist years, the unfairness - and unfunniness - of the humor was one of the early factors in starting me on my long day's journey to the right.
Good grief, what obtuse witlessness. Look, here's why it has (quite literally) nothing to do with any type of base "bitterness." This is about the self-promoting, self-enamored Fourth Estate, the MSM, acting literally as an operating unit of the Obama/Biden campaign. The pronounced bias is bad enough, especially so when it's forwarded with preachments and declarations of "objectivity". But when it branches off further still into full-bore praxis, to practical and strategically conceived alliances, with only the thinest veneer of professed "objectivity" - then that too is removed - mere "bitterness" has nothing to do with it. Or, if it does, the charge needs to be supported because it's not at all self-evident.
Two additional examples, emphasis added:
The Most Bizarre Journalistic Malpractice Yet?Campaign Finance Fraud: the Associated Press covers upMany other examples could be offered.
Because ordinary Americans all know that Katy's Diner in Wilmington has been out of business for 26 years, right? Come on now. And its, not it's.
This Obama Presidency is going to be a good time.
. . . and tell those damn kids to get off my lawn!
I pointed at my own comments because they contain links to external sources. This makes more sense than pasting in those same external links over and over again. Duh. I guess you have some kind of click impairment.
Every time you cite Power Line, your credibility, such as it is, takes another hit. They are reliably unreliable. One of many examples can be found here.
Is there some story about the Obama children the media is missing? If so, what is it? Is there some genuinely funny joke about them that the comedy writers are missing? If so, tell us the joke and make us laugh.
The kids on my lawn are pretty damn funny. Too bad they can't get on SNL because the SNL oldsters won't let them on their lawn. Little remarked fact - average age of SNL's has gone up over the years. Why might that be?
Fey is my age (38); Belushi was in his late 20's in SNL's heyday.
"Every time you cite Power Line, your credibility, such as it is, takes another hit."
And yet you cited them twice, twice (you repeated the same double cite, to characterize the entire non-Soros blogosphere, no less) to me. Another thing that hurts credibility: 3,476,254 consecutive posts from the exact same viewpoint. You'd require a week's worth of admissions against interest just to get to mind-numbingly predictable...
When I cite Power Line, it's because there's a good reason to do so. Like here, where I demonstrated your tenuous grip on reality.
You're right, it's worse than that. You made it clear that you're so click-impaired you can't even find the evidence I presented.
From the previously cited commentary:
"It is illegal for foreigners to donate to an American political campaign, and Obama has refused to release information about his "small" donors. So how, exactly, could the Republican Party possibly have a "list of foreign donors to Obama's campaign"?"
Combining scofflaw with a flim-flam disdain, then combined further still with self-congratulations.
Penetrating stuff, LN.
Listen to McCain's speech today and you'll hear the whole thing!
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone (or FEC filing). From WaPo's The Trail:
Just another skirmish in the war.
It of course doesn't occur to you that such matters are part and parcel of each campaign season. But secondly and more importantly, since "Obama has refused to release information about his "small" donors", it's more than a little convenient to refer to a report that resulted from the fact that McCain had released his own report to the FEC.
As you suggest, this finance stuff is typically reflective of minor skirmishes, but it was originally brought up in conjunction with a different issue, the fact the "MSM" is in large part not merely biased, but is functioning as an arm of the Obama/Biden campaign.
Hence this and this were previously linked.
Deep thought? Or selectively incurious?
"When I cite Power Line, it's because there's a good reason to do so. Like here, where I demonstrated your tenuous grip on reality."
OK, that makes twice, thrice. Would you like to go for twice, four times? Unfortunately, there I run out of cute Olde English words for multiplication.
If you'll refer back to the post above which you evidently neglected to fully read, you'll see a challenge to your "good reason" for the original link.
Reality's a big place, JBG. Any of us who imagines that his grasp on it can be anything but tenuous is fooling himself. Hate to put in all that work earning 6 Ivy degrees and end up a fool...
I like Palin because she's so gosh-darned cute (if she remains VP it doesn't matter, if that heartbeat happens then the shadow government puppetmasters will have to reveal themselves, but they'd be there anyway) and I'll be cheering for McCain while I vote for Barr and my state goes for Obama, but I think they skewered her, and Biden, pretty well in the debate (and I did watch the debate, because a lot of times I barely know what the players in Washington look and sound like, and I don't want that to happen again).
You all might be right that they're harsher on Palin and McCain than on Biden and Obama; if so that's not news either.
Agreed, Rodger Lodger. I'm no fan of racism. I look forward to the day when Obama is not "the Black President" but merely "the President (whose father was Kenyan.)"
David Warner, to paraphrase what they say about Mozart, by the time Belushi was Tina Fey's age, he'd been dead for five years.
"David Warner, to paraphrase what they say about Mozart, by the time Belushi was Tina Fey's age, he'd been dead for five years."
And her performances are quite clever compared to those a dead person could offer, I'll grant you that. SNL could likely do better, however, if they did younger, as they once did, and well.