Let's face it, the Republicans love Hillary Clinton. They quietly in their heart of hearts pine for her to win the Democratic nomination. The Republican Governor of Florida is rolling out the red carpet for a second primary which will favor Clinton. Pat Buchanan can't be quiet about how much he respects Hillary. Even Ann Coulter pal and SNL sketch writer Jim Downey has written several sketches portraying Hillary as picked on by the press. Downey is one of the all time great sketch writers but I know he's no Hillary fan. Don't get me wrong, I like Hillary and still think Bill Clinton is one of our great presidents. But it's weird. Weird like....well, Pat Buchanan praising Hillary Clinton.
Now it's possible the corporate right wants her to win in order to keep afloat the huge economy of Hillary hate bumper stickers that if my numbers are correct generates over 55 billion dollars in revenue for the south.* They also could be supporting her because after over seven years of the absolute incompetence that is the Bush administration they finally get that corporate welfare and tax breaks for millionaires are not good for the economy. Or maybe they think she's Hilary Swank.
But more likely, in fact, screw it, for sure, they are backing her the way I root for Nenad Krstic to cover Keven Garnett so the Big Ticket can put up twenty and twenty on him.
And yes, it's sad that someone as capable as Hillary would be considered fodder for McCain, a "don't change horses in mid-stream, even when it takes that horse twelve years to cross that stream" kind of guy. Senator McCain just got the thumbs up from Bush. Isn't an endorsement from W like a job reference from that astronaut chick who lost it and wore diapers? Well, she is an astronaut and Bush is president.
The biggest upside of this whole thing is that SNL has clearly still got clout even in this day of a thousand channels and a billion internet sites. They influenced a primary for F's sake. That's big. Now I wrote for the show in the nineties and it's an incredible place that's actually as exciting as it seems like it would be. I've seen SNL have incredible political influence in a good way (Dennis Miller's line about Reagan: "It scares me when the finger nearest the button has a string tied around it.") and a bad way (Portraying Bush and Gore as equally buffoonish in their debates. Bush was an embarrassment and the sketch made people think they were in the same ballpark.). It's had its left wing writers like Al Franken and it's right-wing writers like Jim Downey, who also wrote those Bush-Gore debates sketches. Franken is now running for the Senate and Downey is spinning primaries.
There's no doubt our nation's comedic TV political coverage between SNL, the Daily Show and the Colbert Report is far better than the straight news. And though that's a pithy and tired observation, it's also stone cold, for better or for worse, true.
So put your bumper stickers on your cars Repubs: "Hillary in '08, Up Until November, and then McCain!" If you drive an Excursion it'll fit.
*My numbers were not correct.
http://boards.nbc.com/nbc/index.php?showforum=18
SHAME ON YOU, SNL!!!
mash*er (mshr)
n.
1. A kitchen utensil for mashing vegetables or fruit.
2. Slang A man who attempts to force his attentions on a woman
Please see the article by Katha Pollitt on Bill Clinton's alleged involvement in the Juanita Broaddrick sexual assault scandal (http://www.thenation.com/doc/19990322/pollitt).
Also, the original Washington Post story by mega-reporter Howard Kurtz on the same subject (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/clinton/stories/broaddrick022599 .htm).
The Juanita Broaddrick interview in which she talks of her personal experiences with the Clintons can be seen at. (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KZ8ICvutc0)
You can also get a paperback version of the book "No One Left To Lie to"--about
the Clinton White House--by British-American writer and human rights activist Christopher Hitchens.
See his chapter on "Is There a Rapist in the Oval Office?"
Recently Hitchens reminded (http://www.slate.com/id/2182065) that the essay "has never been challenged by anybody in the fabled Clinton 'rapid response' team.
"Yet one constantly reads that both Clintons, including the female who helped intensify the slanders against her mistreated sisters, are excellent on women's 'issues.'"
Yes, they are making fun of him -- that is what comedy does.
But how do you call this racist? Better yet, just stop calling it racist because it is not.
And you diminish the cry of racism when it is indeed warranted, and deserves attention.
No my friends it is Hillary Clinton the Republicans are afraid. To think the Republican base will all come out to keep Hil down is a fantasy not close to reality. When they had a chance to stop Billy Boy's second term they didn't get off their couches to do it. Why now. Let's be practical.
www.andwearenotsaved.blogspot.com
FDR
According to Open Secrets.org - Lorne Michaels has given the following contributions:
MICHAELS, LORNE
NEW YORK,NY 10023
NBC/BROADWAY VIDEO/WRITER/PRODUCER
3/31/2007
$2,300
Franken, Al
MICHAELS, LORNE MR
NEW YORK,NY 10019
BROADWAY VIDEO ENTERT/PRODUCER
3/5/2007
$2,300
Dodd, Christopher J
MICHAELS, LORNE MR
NEW YORK,NY 10019
BROADWAY VIDEO ENTERT/PRODUCER
3/5/2007
$2,300
Dodd, Christopher J
MICHAELS, LORNE MR
NEW YORK,NY 10023
SNL/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
5/11/2007
$1,300
McCain, John
MICHAELS, LORNE MR
NEW YORK,NY 10023
SNL/EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
3/31/2007
$1,000
McCain, John.
You've been on SNL 500 times - aren't you gonna weigh in on this? Lorne is a McCain contributor, Hillary has the NY scene sewn up and is clearly contemptuous of the Democratic party.
But setting aside the stench of Hillary's underhanded hypocrisy for a moment can you tell me why, if she deserves credit for her stint as co-pres, what would justify a third, or fourth, Hillary Cinton term at the expense of renewing a stagnant and defeatist Democratic party with the most gifted and compelling candidate we've seen in 40 years?
Wasn't it her "first" term that paved the way for eight years of global bloodshed and right wing religious fanaticism?
Oh and "Irish blast Clinton's foreign policy claim":
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Top_News/2008/03/09/irish_blast_clintons_foreign_policy_claim/9676
Let me take this oppotunity to express that I have LOATHED SNL ever since Eddie Murphy left, the talent is not fit to compare to those fantastic early days and the new comedy writing is all negative hogwash not an ounce of wit or orginality in it.
God Bless John Belushi for his orginal comedy spirit. That man was funny, these new comedians are just wannabes.
At any rate, I and lots of others, have noted that SNL has gone out of its way, of late, to portray Senator Obama in an unflattering manner. A step beyond mere lampoonery, shall we say.
First, there was a skit parodying the Clinton Campaign's manufactured tales of long suffering Hillary, which enabled the Clinton Campaign to further hype its crocodile tear laden message:
Why you mean media folk picking on poor Hillary and not Obama ?
In addition, to trying to paint a bigger bull's eye on Obama, those"tales of woe "also allowed Hillary to play the "picked on woman card".
Following that skit, SNL viewers were treated to, yet another Obama skit, supposedly based on candidate Obama, and featuring actor Fred Armisen. In last week's skit, Mr. Armisen plays the oratorically gifted and loquacious Mr. Obama - as a monosyllabic simpleton who is seemingly bereft of any substance or clues about anything. The portrayal would be more understandable were we lampooning our current POTUS – but Obama as a monosyllabic is incredulous and inexplicable. The performance was beyond just bad acting and bad writing -but it was those things as well.
Perhaps playing a character like Mr. Obama is simply beyond Fred Armisen range as an actor ,but his portrayal of Mr. Obama , even as lampoon , is among the worst acting jobs I've seen- since Robin Givens flashed "goo goo eyes " at Mike Tyson during a Barbra Waters interview.
How one connects Mr. Obama to the Amos and Andy type dimwit played by Armisen escapes me? The performance was so bad as to be character assassination by lampoon, not unlike the Jim Crow caricatures of Black folk of days gone by.
And to top off the SNL pre-primary ode to Obama, they featured a cartoon sketch, right out of the race-baiting theme that the Clinton Campaign hatched, during the South Carolina Primary. They depicted Obama as having a "special" closeted relationship relationship with Jessie Jackson and AL Sharpton.
The Cartoon , like Bill Clinton's words in South Carolina and the "Call Me Harold ads run against Harold Ford during his Tennessee US Senate contest , makes clever use of our racial zeitgeist .
Our racial zeitgeist is where we contemporary Americans keep what remains of our hatreds, stereotypes, taboos and our evolving assumptions about social order based on skin color.
If this zeitgeist were a room and we could to peek inside it , we'd see a furious mess : old stuff dying , old stuff metastasizing to new stuff and new stuff being added as trends and conditions change . All of us have some of the zeitgeist in us - but in varying degrees and configurations.
The Cartoon format is a perfect way to politically tap the zeitgeist, because what we take from the cartoon, is based on each person's racial sensitivity. The carton gives you the added advantage of avoiding the intense backlash Bill Clinton caused in South Carolina when he tried to make similar appeals featured in the cartoon. Like Bart Simpson, cartoon characters get a pass and sometimes cartoonish people do too. It's just comedy right?
Here is how it works by category of voters
* Not a racist bone in your body and know lots of Black Folk? No problem, to you the toon is just funny or you may think it exploitative and speak out. You are not the target audience for the bait.
* You think Black Folk are from another planet? No problem - the toon is just reinforcement. You are not the target audience for the bait because if you vote –we got yours.
* On the fence with your racial stuff, and still got some of the old stuff you are trying to work through, but you like Obama's message? Well, that cartoon just might push you back a bit in your progressive thinking and affect your vote. You just are a prime target for some good old political race baiting. It might not work on you but you are a target; it's not personal it's a numbers game.
In short, appeals to the racial zeitgeist can have the impact of reinforcing any latent or lingering racial bias in the voting population. We call it called race baiting because it is a trap designed to ensnare those of us with impulses and biases we may or may not even know we have.
As is widely known, Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are frequently ridiculed by the Rush Limbaugh crowd and others as divisive figures, just to toss a little red meat to their listeners, from time to time. The Limbaugh/Coulter crowd frequently labels Jessie and Al as everything but children of God, and some of the Limbaugh/Coulter contempt has wafted into the nation's general political discourse. This voicing of contempt has caused the Reverends to be controversial among some voters.
In the cartoon, the Reverends are portrayed as covert advisors to Obama. In addition, the cartoon showed Obama employing extraordinary, and in the eyes of some, demeaning measures to keep these relationships out of the media's and the public's view - but the link between advisors and candidate is clearly made, in this animated skit.
Beyond the linkage that was created, the cartoon story line might even suggest to some viewers, that the relationships might call for some non-animated scrutiny. In addition, due to the demeaning stuff, even some Black voters might be negatively impacted.
The dilemma for the Obama campaign is, how does one recover from a "cartoon attack" without looking silly or seeming to take one's self to seriously? I guess you could launch a cartoon to muddy your opponent similarly, but you'd need a major network and a highly viewed TV program in your corner to have a similar level of impact – not to mention the time to respond.
As I watched the program, I'm thinking, can NBC be this brazen and desperate to go to these lengths? The answer is clearly: yes they can be, and yes they did. It was a political hit job plain and simple.
Included in the hit job is the on air endorsement of HRC by guest host and by former SNL regular Tina Fey. With all this in the tally, and though it would far exceed FEC guidelines in terms of dollar value, perhaps NBC should count the last two weeks of SNL as a Clinton campaign contribution. As Adam McKay, suggest in Live from New York...Vote Hillary! , it looks like they did affect last Tuesday's Democratic Party Primary, what else they want or will do –we shall see.
In the latest skit, Obama's Secretary of State, is Al Sharpton. What better way to to get people to doubt, than to hold up one of the most "scary" African American leaders out there, as being in charge of "the children's (and the country's) safety."
There are so many expert propaganda ploys in these skits, especially last night's, that it's hard to believe that the staff of SNL wrote them.
BTW, it seems as though Fred Armisen, is doing precisely what his employers have asked of him, the only thing missing, being the shuffle. But the SNL season is relatively young. We may yet be given the opportunity to see the 19th century revisited, in the 21st.
sound judgement???I dont think so.Cheers
Hearing on CEO multimillion salaries.