Friday, October 17, 2008




Sarah Palin may very well be appearing on Saturday Night Live this weekend which is actually a great idea. SNL have been getting great mileage out of her recently and so her appearing on the show will just hammer the shit out of the one and a half points she exists to make ie. That’s she’s likeable because she’s just like the average person.

If she can take criticism from a rich, clever, leftist, New Yorker like Tina Fey then she’s even more on the side of the average Joe Sixpack and Hockey Mom and that will prop her up in all sorts of demographic groups across the country. After all, if she’s fabulous, funny and self deprecating then there’s no reason to wonder about her foreign policy experience.

The interesting thing about this ABC blog post that I’m using as a source here is that they quote Palin in a way that is clearly mocking her a la Ruby Wax. They include her considered use of “doggone it” twice.

Palin also says:

"But you know," she said, "I just want to be there to show Americans that we will rise above the political shots that we take because we're in this serious business for serious challenges that are facing the good American people right now. That's why we're campaigning hard. That's why we're working hard."

For Palin to say that is laughable. What has characterized the Republican party campaign so far is predictable, aggressive, gutter level emotion charged swipes that play on any and every prejudice found profitable and what makes Obama stand out – even perhaps more than he should as a junior senator – is his often surprising decision not to swipe on the same level as McCain. When Palin came into the race she was sent out as a programmed tank drumming up inane, ignorant, often violent and certainly issueless intolerance of her opponent. It’s almost like she could do it so that McCain could try and appear more civil. After all, civility seemed to be working for Obama.

Palin on SNL will be cute but it will completely subvert the election yet again from anything even remotely meaningful which, when you’re running on what the McCain/Palin ticket are running on is probably vital. Joan Didion wrote a great piece on salon.com about how this election was entirely about soundbytes and nothing else and that it played out as expected. Palin on SNL is just another “Lipstick on a Pig”, “Joe the Plumber”, “Spread the Wealth Around”, Bill Ayers... [source]

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