SNL, the art of whining & how to win elections by complaining about the media

[ingi]

SNL, the art of creative whining and how to win an election by complaining about the media


Now we know why Hillary Clinton has stumbled in her bid to be proclaimed the Democrats' presumptive nominee for president by Super Tuesday: It's the media's fault.

The media is so besotted with Obama-rama, you see, that they won't hold Barack Obama to proper scrutiny — certainly not the kind of scrutiny Hillary Herself has been exposed to.

If Hillary wins Ohio and Texas tonight — and my bet is that she will — she will owe a huge debt to Saturday Night Live. (By the way, "Hillary," as opposed to Clinton or Ms. Clinton, is not intended to be dismissive or condescending. Her own campaign staff have campaigned for her to be known as Hillary, to differentiate herself from Bubba, so it doesn't look as if she's running in his considerable shadow.)

Intentional or not, Hillary's citing of an SNL parody at an actual debate in Ohio last week marked a kind of strange media loop in itself: life imitating art imitating life.

First, SNL ran a parody of a debate in which Obama is offered softball questions while Hillary is hammered on everything from health care to NAFTA.

Then Hillary mentioned the SNL parody in an actual, real-life debate on MSNBC.

Then she showed up on this past weekend's SNL, the one with Ellen Page. In a sweet exchange with Amy-Poehler-as-Hillary-Clinton — does Amy Poehler do a better Hillary Clinton than Hillary herself? — the two hit it off.

Hillary didn't win an endorsement. SNL isn't in the game of endorsing political candidates.

What Hillary did gain, however, was a boost to her hip factor, not to mention street cred among the SNL crowd — the very audience one would expect to back Obama.

Poehler's parody was wonderfully written, however. SNL has been back for just two weeks — Lorne Michaels says that, against his better judgment, he's going to do four straight new shows, something he hasn't done with SNL since the mid '70s — and it is as sharp as I ever remember it being. Page was terrific — a natural in the role of guest, and even seriously weird sketches like Peter Pan and Melissa Etheridge had a vibrant snap to them, thanks to Page's fearlessness and lack of self-consciousness.

Hillary's SNL speech has been cited verbatim on numerous political and news websites. Poehler's set-up speech, in which she pretended, as Hillary, to be miffed once again at the media's infatuation with Obamarama, is harder to find, however. It bears repeating, if only in excerpt. See if you can read this and not laugh, or at least smile:

Poehler as Hillary:

"All right, energy policy. The big oil companies are quite happy with the status quo. They're earning record profits and pretty speeches are not going to make them give up power. It's going to take a fighter, not a talker. Someone who is aggressive enough, and relentless enough, and demanding enough to take them on. Someone so annoying, so pushy, so grating, so bossy and shrill, with a personality so unpleasant, that at the end of the day the special interests will have to go, 'Enough! We give up! Life is too short to deal with this awful woman! Just give her what she wants so she'll shut up and leave us in peace!' And I think the American people will agree, that someone is me."

The Democratic candidate for president in November, 2008 will be — Hillary Clinton. SNL broke the news first.

And if it isn't, well, SNL was always supposed to be just satire.

What an incredible election, though, isn't it? What a moment in history, what amazing excitement.
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[sluce]

This skit was pretty funny!

I did the NBC tour once and they took us on the SNL set. They showed how much effort went into each new show and why they don't run more than 2 back to back. I give Lorne a lot fo credit for being willing to do 4 in row!!

[McJag]

I thought it was a hoot,too!

[ingi]

I went up to the Conan set, it was really small!