Playing To The Base

20 October 2008 | 1:26 PM

As pretty much everyone knows by now, vice presidential hopeful Sarah Palin went on NBC’s Saturday Night Live this weekend to be lampooned by its cast of elite liberal evildoers. She played the straight-man well (I suppose the evangelical voters wouldn’t have it any other way), I guess, and did a reasonably good job of being good sport. However, two things about her appearance(s) struck me as a bit, well, funny (and not funny “ha-ha” but rather funny “hmm”).

First off, just like her pressers (and debates, too!), she had surprisingly few lines. I wonder if this is a function of a lack of rehearsal time or perhaps it reflects her inability to stay on-message long enough to utter a sentence that doesn’t have the word “maverick” in it. I dunno what I was expecting from her, but despite her utter inadequacy as a leader, the one thing she’s good at is hamming it up for cameras: I guess I thought we’d see more mugging.

And then there was the brief, fleeting moment when the inimitable Tina Fey (in full Palin regalia) and the governor had to walk past eachother: it’s pure conjecture on my part, but the bedwetting, Fey-fantasizing liberal in me believes that Fey refused to do anything on the screen with That Woman. Anyway, the skits were fairly well done. See for yourself:

Here’s the intro piece:

And here’s her “Weekend Update” segment:

UPDATED
So, apparently, the winking bandit wasn’t the only one who stopped by for a sketch on SNL this weekend. Witness the confrontation we all knew was coming, and the mad acting skills of one Marky Mark Wahlberg:

Wow, he sure showed Andy Samberg, didn’t he? Dude is more wooden while playing himself than Samberg’s wooden impression of him is. That fellow is a fucking thespian, I tell you.

(Wait, “thespian” means “terrible actor”, right?)

Posted by Andy in Politcally Incoherent