SNL's Campaign Trail: Fauxbama, Huckabee, And Tina Fey Endorsing Clinton

Is Bitch the New Black? If you believe Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live" last night, then damn straight; if you don't, you may well be burning up the NBC message boards right now. Last night politics was center stage on SNL, with an epic cold open spoofing the latest CNN debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (over 8 minutes), a supersized "Weekend Update" (11 minutes), and about as close as SNL could come to a live, on-air endorsement of Hillary Clinton by host and returning alumna Tina Fey. In a segment on Update called "Women's News" ("It's a great time to be a lady in America!") Fey celebrated the news of a woman running for president — and then (after a bitty swipe at Oprah), proceeded to take aim at a number of Hillary-hating arguments: That if elected she wouldn't be able to "control" hubby Bill Clinton and there'd be "co-presidents" in the White House ("'Cause that would be terrible, having two intelligent, qualified people working together to solve problems — why would you let Starsky talk to Hutch?"); reassuring the audience that, even though they were married, they were having "about as much sex as George Bush and Jeb Bush are" and smacking down Rush Limbaugh for his comments that "America's not ready to watch their president turn into an old lady. "Really?" asked Fey. "'Cause they didn't seem to mind when Ronald Reagan did that." But what bugged her most, said Fey, was when people said that Clinton was a bitch. "Yeah, she is," said Fey. "And so am I — and so is this one over here," gesturing at Amy Poehler. "Yeah, deal with it," said Poehler. Fey's point: Bitches got things done, yo, and that's why Hillary would be a good president. "So I'm sayin, it's not too late, Texas and Ohio, get on board! Bitch is the new black!" An exhortation of voters to the polls to vote their bitch in? Bill Clinton probably couldn't have done it more effectively. Watch it here:







Commenters are already incensed (both on the NBC chat boards and in our comments sections, so far) but to be fair, it's about equal to the Lorne Michaels endorsement of Obama, who said Obama would be hard to mock because he was a "truly heroic figure." Also, it's worth noting that many Hillary supporters are chiming in with gratitude to Fey for articulating a sentiment that had made them feel marginalized in the face of Obamania.

Speaking of which, SNL also tapped Fred Armisen to play its Obama (details here), which he did with his brow furrowed the whole time, doing a nice rendering of Obama's from-30,000 feet speechifying and penchant for scribbling during debates. The CNN debate spoof greedily hit on it all around the central conceit that the media was "totally in the tank" with Obama. Kristen Wiig was a smitten Campbell Brown, Jason Sudeikis a drooling John King, and Will Forte a dashingly handsome Jorge Ramos, whose question to Obama was "Are you comfortable? Can we get you anything?" while all three panelists ignored and insulted Amy Poehler's Clinton (by far the best example of that was when Wiig's Brown smacked down Clinton for interrupting the "randomly selected" audience questioner, Obama Girl. "I think you owe Obama Girl and all the people of this nation an Obam-apology," she deadpanned. Classic). Props to Amber Lee Ettinger, aka Obama Girl, for hitting the big time — hearing Fey thank Mike Huckabee, Steve Martin, Carrie Underwood and Obama Girl at the end of the show was really a testament to how much the advent of viral vid has changed thing. Watch the whole great segment here:

Finally, there was the aforementioned Governor Huckabee, completing the late-night talk show circuit and spoofing himself in a segment that mirrored his campaign rather well — he was charming, funny and refused to leave. Watch it below:







As long as we're rocking the full SNL YouTube thing, here's Fey's opening monologue with a guest turn by Steve Martin, who always seems to monologue about how great, wonderful and what a big star he is. I'm just sayin'. Cogent writer's strike commentary in that, too. Chekkit here:







And finally: Tina Fey wished announcer Don Pardo a very happy birthday — his 90th! — during the goodnights last night — he doesn't look it by a long shot, nor sound it. Wow. Many more, Don Pardo!

Comments

[soupcity]

It's about time.

[larry278]

Ms Fey seems to be aware of fighting female leaders of India, Pakistan, Israel, the UK, etc who led their nation in war time & put up a very good fight which many say won their wars. While we supporters of Barak Hussein Obama want US troops to come home from what was called the Middle East asap-her Hillaryship is of the fighting female leader modern tradition. She would try to bring the troops home in an orderly, measured, so called strategic retreat.
I grudgingly admire HRC & this colors my thinking. Her Hillaryship might be the one who could pull off an orderly, measured, strategic retreat of US forces from the Middle East in 4 years or less. But I'm not willing to gamble on that. As for McCain-vile obscenities in 6 languages deleted. I'm not into suicide this week, not even slow suicide.

[justwaitandsee]

Please awake up....Appa­rently your still dreaming..­...

[PrdAmerican]

They both want to withdraw and both have said they will devise plans for withdrawel from their military advisors and personnell. Both want it done responsibly and orderly as possible.

[larry278]

John McCain publicly says that US troops could remain in Iraq for 100 years; a cynic would be tempted to say-the 100 year stay/occupation of Iraq would be a hell of a good cover for a US bug out from Afghanistan & Iraq to start at 6:00 pm EST on 1/20/09 & be completed by 9:00 am EST on 2/15/09. As the late Red Buttons used to say, "Strange things are happening.­". No, the "Red Buttons Show" didn't refer to a dancer's pasties falling off.

[useyourbrain]

Do you think the military in the US would have much respect for BO? Do you think he could pull off a disengagement that would not cause more death and destruction? I don't

[ladygreenslippers]

As an Obama supporter, I am so happy to see that SNL has NOT turned into a one-sided Pro-Obama campaign. Obviously, i think Obama will make the best president of the candidates running for the office, but that doesn't mean that i want to see HRC demonized in the media. It's the job of the candidates to make their own case, and it's the job of SNL to make fun of any and every candidate - and that includes Barack and HRC.

[naijaman]

Well said.

[larry278]

I may not get it but why be all bent out of shape because Tina Fey expressed her opinion? She had an opinios. She expressed it. So what?
Get over it. It's time to work to see that Barak Hussein Obama is the Democratic Party's nominee for POTUS. Stop wasting your time & energy in a snit about Tina Fey.
No, I don't mean you ladygreenslippers or naijaman.
But those who are angry should cool it. Save the venom for Nader, McCain & their supporters.

[Naugatuck73]

Fred Armisen who played Obama for the record is 1/2 Venezuelan and 1/2 Japanese - So, he's asian american and latin american - so this is different than Darrel Hammond or Dana Carvey playing in blackface.

With that said - i'd prefer the show to be funny rather than controversial and last night the laughs were not there. The writers unforunately brought their c-game - the show was barely watchable

[Ides]

I give them credit for trying, but SNL hasn't been funny in over a decade. I missed the Obama skit, actually, so it may have been funnier than the rest of the stuff I watched.

[apcalc]

Loved that show!!!

[BACbank]

Maybe it's because I'm a Hillary supporter, but I loved the opening and the Weekend Update segments! More than anything, I wish Hillary could actually have been there to say, "Am I a bitch? Of course!".
Not that SNL should be any candidate's backbone, but I'm overjoyed they are back and are calling the media on the carpet.

[reedmaker]

I saw it--I loved it. Laughed my ass off. And I can finally say, I'm proud to be a bitch.

[justwaitandsee]

I am proud to be a bitch also....Bu­t there still is away to conduct yourself..­..But I guess everyone has their own taste of humor

[useyourbrain]

Hillary should embrace "the Bitch" and use Elton John's song, "The Bitch is Back" as her theme song -- great, energizing opening riffs on that reording.

[anghiari]

Tina Fey is to Bitch as George Bush is to Dave Chappelle.­..she got the word...jus­t don't know what it is...