So...who saw Sarah Palin on SNL tonight? What did you think?

You definately brought up some points that I was too busy rebooting my stupid computer to notice but I watched it and thought it was the most put together I seen her! Reguardless of whether she was made to look like a pawn to us, she certainly wouldn’t have don’t it if certain “people” didn’t think she needed to seem able to take the punches. Personally, I have had a hard time watching most of Palin’s interactions with the media. I guess it’s good that she reads most of them so I don’t have to tongue the gaping wound on my lip more.

Nail in the coffin, that and Colin Powell’s endorsement announcement this morning.

The sketch was the least funny of the series (of Palin sketches) and she seemed to be little more than a prop for the joke.

It was brave of her, and whether she got the jokes or not, it takes a certain person to sit there and bop along while someone pretends to shoot a moose in front of you. I don’t know what kind of person exactly, but…

I still fear Palin and I hope that her being on SNL didn’t make her more likeable to some of the swing voters. I just want the election to get here; the suspense is making me anxious and I really don’t know how I’ll feel about living here in U.S.A. for another four years, represented by a government that passes policy on issues I am so strongly against.

I missed it, but if your reaction has some commonality with others, then, GREAT.

i think the goal of her being on the show was to bring her down to “real life”, as her entire campaign is based on. in this regard, she was successful.

I haven’t seen the SNL episode yet, but I seriously wonder what the hell the McCain campaign was thinking. They’ve coddled Palin since she was announced and purposely kept her away from the public, so much so that this SNL appearance counts for about 25% of what anybody knows about her, and at this late stage they choose a comedy show for her to cone forward on?!? Sounds like udder desperation to me. It’s be one thing if the public knew her well and this was an attempt to humanize her, but nobody knows anything about this woman. I think it just shows how deathly afraid they are of having her speak about policy in an unscripted environment.

I agree, Maverick. I also have to wonder what the backlash would have been had she refused to do the show.

Every link I’ve come across won’t load…does anyone have a link to the video?

http://www.hulu.com/watch/39704/saturday-night-live-governor-palin-cold-open

Have you tried this one:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/18/sarah-palin-on-snl-with-t_n_135887.html

Otherwise it could be that NBC has asked everyone to take it down, in which case you should be able to get it at www.nbc.com

btw, thanks to everyone for voicing their opinion…so far I agree with everything everyone has said. I just wonder if it was really bravery for her to stand up to the mocking, or if she legitimately thought she was in on the joke…like the clueless kid on the playground who thinks they’re laughing with him while they’re laughing at him.

Who’s Sarah Palin?

You know, I can’t stand her, and the thought of her in office frightens me, but I actually feel bad for her after watching that. That’s embarrassing.

I definitely think she was in on the jokes, got them, understood them and went with them. There is a big difference between not getting SNL and qualification for VP.

I think it took guts and she did a good job.

By the way, I don’t like her for VP but in the end she is a person and yay for her taking the chance to get up and do that.

Hey, this may be her only chance in her lifetime to be on SNL. Would you take it?

I couldn’t believe my eyes. Considering SNL has a reputation for being a coke fueled orgy behind the scenes and this woman is ” a gift from god” or whatever those inbred people from Ohio were saying, this couldn’t help her with them. What a dumbass. I doubt it will matter because republicans will go with their candidate no matter what happens.

Do I think going on SNL was the best strategy for her? Mmm..probably not. But I do think that it takes serious guts to go to such a show that has repeatedly mocked you, and continues to do so in front of your eyes, and take it (or at least pretend to take it) like a good sport. So I would give her credit for that. Was I slightly scared when I saw her rocking out to the rap song with her hands in the air? Haha, yep.

I thought it was extremely uncomfortable. I almost felt bad for her through most of it.

That was hilarious!!! Alec baldwin didn’t do that well though. But I loooooved it!!!

@ Bri: I continue to agree with you… seeing as you’re not an idiot, it makes that easy. I think you might be one of 3 people on here with a working brain that doesn’t lean so far to the left that you need neck surgery.

Does anyone have the lyrics to the “Rap?”

@ judi – link :D

Thanks PnL, fluve to you!!

I thought she did fine.
Hopefully, she will decide to go into acting and get out of politics.

That’s a great idea! She can be Reagan in reverse!
Or our wondrous governor in Cali, Arrrrrrnold, the Governator.

She’s having a blast with her 15 minutes of fame…

I missed it but I always thought it wouldn’t be good for her campaign. People would get the wrong message and think she isn’t really serious about her job. Tina Fey was hilarious though.

SNL really isn’t very funny. Just a bigger budget. I watch MadTv.

@Dale: I think your grasping a bit on this one. I find it hard to believe that she didn’t understand that people were going to be making fun of her on SNL. That’s what SNL does!!
Secondly, you act like conservatives don’t have a sense of humor. I didn’t find the other skits to be that funny but I didn’t really care, it’s not like she created the skits. Comedy is still the one and only form of artistic expression that has yet to be depleted by the d@mn insensitive, easily offended people in the world. If you go on a live sketch comedy show like SNL you will be made fun of, and I think the general population including Palin understands that.

@pixel: SNL used to be good back in the day.

Critter -

I am sure she knew they’d be making fun of her, it wasn’t THAT they were making fun of her that stunned me, nor did I think conservatives were incapable of getting the joke. But it was to my sensibilities, and I’m WAY INTO satire by the way, a bit mean spirited. I mean, think about Amy Poehler’s Hillary Clinton impression. It has been at times very biting. But, when Hillary Clinton was on the show and “interrupted” Poehler, Poehler (and everyone else) was “somewhat” more deferential than in times past and since. Even on that same show, with Mark Wahlberg confronting Andy Samberg over his impression, Andy didn’t openly mock Wahlberg (and he’s just an actor, not someone who could be the next Vice President). I think of all the times throughout SNL’s history where they’ve done an impression of someone repeatedly so that the impression becomes a bit “hit”, then what happens is, the person they’re impersonating comes on the show, and the tone shifts, it’s all “ha-ha, I’m scared now, but really we all know this is all in good fun, right?” NEVER, and I mean NEVER in over 30 years of SNL have I seen them go as far as to take the opportunity of having someone they impersonate actually guest on the show, to openly mock that person to their face.

What I expected was Palin would come out and interrupt Fey and they would have a little humor at Palin’s expense, yes, and to be honest, I thought the opening skit was fairly well done. Alec Baldwin caught a lot of heat from liberals for being so polite to the real Palin, and I thought you know, that’s what you do…you have a little fun at the expense of both your own reputation and the cliches you’ve put forth about the other person and you kind of leave it on a friendly note, where it’s all something that shows that hey, we appreciate you’re coming on our show, and in exchange, we’re not going to take you to school while you’re here.

But the rap, here are some gems:

can i get a ‘what what’ from the senior section

but when i be vp all the leaders in the world gonna finally meet me

i’m jeremiah wright cause tonight i’m the preacha

all the mavericks in the house put your hands up
all the plumbers in the house pull your pants up

when i say ‘obama’ you say ‘ayers’

i built me a bridge – it ain’t goin’ nowhere

shoot a mother-humpin moose….now ya dead, now ya dead, cause i’m an animal, and i’m bigger than you

Now, this isn’t just hockey mom, joe sixpack, lipstick on a pitbull, snowmobile racing, dontcha know kinda humor that one would expect for them to do to her face (though they mocked the cliches as well). This was assailing not only her demeanor, but her so-called policy decisions, and her divisive campaign tactics.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully agree with it, I think it does a great job of pointing out what a friggin’ joke this woman really is. And some might say she was being a “good sport”, but you’re a good sport when you take good natured ribbing, you’re a rube who doesn’t know the difference between people laughing at you and laughing with you when they tear you to shreds to your face and you sit there throwing your hands in the air…wavin’ them around like you just don’t care.

I don’t think I’m reaching at all. But my point in asking was to see what others think, and I respect your opinion on it and think you for giving it. Just wanted to clarify why I saw it differently.

@dale, couldn’t have said it better myself. My sentiments exactly.

@dale: I’m not arguing the fact that SNL “in over 30 years of SNL have I seen them go as far as to take the opportunity of having someone they impersonate actually guest on the show, to openly mock that person to their face.” I am arguing the fact that she didn’t get the joke. I think it would have been more detrimental for her to just simply get pissed off and walk off stage than to sit there and take what came at her with a smile on her face. It was a funny skit though!!:)

Well yes, I agree with you that it would have been worse for her to walk off the stage. My argument though is that she showed no outward sides of being perturbed by any of it, she in fact seemed to be enjoying herself and playing along, making a spectacle of herself in fact. I mean, they even had DIALOGUE for her in the segueway as if she was going to do the rap HERSELF (obviously that was never the case). But the point is, how, in this universe of campaigns being so tightly controlled as to never stray from the message, particularly when you’ve been shielded from the gaze of the media as deftly as they have done with Palin, HOW do you not have SOME power to say, nope, that goes too far before the sketch airs. And if they pulled some bait and switch on her, you know we’d have heard about how she walked into a trap. It’s kind of like, who signed off on this? It seems to me if she had seen this as the political hit job even liberals like myself do, she would have been out there Sunday morning decrying how they went too far. Or at very least, she wouldn’t have sat there with a big ol dopey grin on her face enjoying the rap. I don’t know if she even heard the words to be honest with you. I suspect, and obviously I could be wrong, that she decided she’d go on the show but not really listen to what they have to say, just kind of deliver the lines they gave her and trust they’d treat her the same way they treat people who’ve been in her position in the past (kind of like her comment of how she likes to watch Fey’s impression of her with the sound off…I think she turned that little internal microphone off between her ears and her brain).

I agree if you find yourself in that position, what do you do…yes, you act like a good sport, but first off, don’t find yourself in that position (like she couldn’t have had veto power here), and second, even if you do, when the rap was over, say something like, “Say it ain’t so, Amy…there you go again.” I mean she gave absolutely no sign to me that she realized she was being laughed at. Now maybe she did realize and it was too late to do anything about it and she has one hell of a poker face. But the question remains, what was the McCain campaign thinking letting her do that?

@Dale: I’ve known you (not really know but have listened to your arguments) for several months. I don’t think most people in general will critique SNL’s skit the way you would. I think “in general” people will simply see that she went on the live skit show, consider her a good sport and move on. IMO this is probably how the McCain campaign looks at it.

I think it would be difficult for her campaign to come out the following day condemning what happened on SNL because they made fun of her. People would say then why the hell did you even allow her to go on the show to begin with, or can’t you guys take a joke? It would be a difficult argument to back up and it is probably something the republican party felt should be left go. In leaving it go, “no harm no foul”, but in decrying the insults made to Palin they could have been considered to be too easily offended and/or it could have been considered by some in the democratic party as another ploy for republicans to gain some more votes. I think leaving it alone if they were even concerned about the skit was the wiser option.

Probably true that most won’t critique it the way I will. I think most people are just like “oh snap, I can’t believe they said that to her face.” I think if you like her it makes her come off as a good sport and if you don’t it makes her come off as a twit. That’s why I wanted to probe a little deeper! :)

I think people are reading way too much into this… Check out some of the flame wars going on NBC’s board regarding these videos. Simmer down folks! It is, after all, only SNL! All good fun in my opinion. I was just disappointed that Tina Fey and Sarah Palin didn’t have a proper conversation during the skit…

P.S. The vid on my website works!

http://www.tinafeysarahpalin.com/ – Videos and commentary on the SNL series…

You know, the only time I’ve ever seen anything like this (where a comedian took on a target in a biting way to his/her face) was this:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-869183917758574879