Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update Thursday premiered last week with a cute take on the Oct. 7 presidential debate that emphasized Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s tendency to wander around the stage and a hilarious question from Bill Murray about the Cubs — McCain and Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama agreed the Cubs will never win and fans should be assisted in finding other teams to root for.
But the best moment was the return of Really!?! With Seth and Amy, where the Weekend Update anchors mock some of societey’s biggest dunderheads. Previous victims have included Michael Vick for his Miami drug bust and former New York Governor Elliot Spitzer for his . . . well . . . you know. Thursday’s victims: The AIG execs who went on a $400,000 junket after receiving an $87 billion government bailout. Really, it’s a great cathartic moment for all of us who’ve had to sweep our jaws off the floor every time we read about the sense of entitlement these bozos have. (The Really!?! segment starts about four minutes into the clip above.)
The Thursday show was fun, though for a show produced to capitalize on SNL’s current political cache, the Update segment veered off politics several times. It was also lacking the Fey factor. Maybe next week. The show will have a notably short time to come up with a satire of the final presidential debate, as the faceoff will be at 9 p.m. Wednesday.
In late night news, John McCain is set to appear on The Late Show with David Letterman Thursday to make up for the night he bailed on Dave a few weeks ago. McCain apparently told Letterman he was heading back to Washington to work on the bailout package, but he was caught on camera in another CBS studio being interviewed by Katie Couric.
Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is also rumored to be set for a Saturday Night Live cameo Oct. 25. No word on what the appearance will be like or if Palin personifier Tina Fey will appear with her, a la Hillary Clinton’s personality-warming appearance with Amy Poehler last year.
If you wanted to contrast coverage by the 24-hour news nets, Friday night was a great opportunity. It was a bad day for the McCain-Palin campaign. First, McCain had to talk down several people at his Minnesota rally who made wild accusations about Obama, and got booed by his own supporters in the process. Then, the Alaska Legislature’s investigation of the “Troopergate” situation was released, and while it cleared Gov. Palin of any wrongdoing, it did say she abused her power.
MSNBC, these two stories completely took over the Countdown with Keith Olbermann, guest hosted by David Shuster, and Rachel Maddow Shows, with numerous analysts and officials opining, where does the McCain-Palin campaign go from here, etc.
Over at FOX News, neither story rated a mention on Bill O’Reilly’s The O’Reilly Factor, though to be fair, the Troopergate story broke near the end of the show. Hannity & Colmes, with Michael Steele sitting in for Sean Hannity, did bring it up at the top of the show with a report, followed by Alan Colmes interviewing Dick Morris who dismissed the report saying, “Clearly, it was political, clearly they’re doing the investigation because she’s running for vice president.” There was nary a mention of the Minnesota incident on H&C, though Morris and others’ did continue to bring up some of the character issues that Democrats contend have been stoking the angry outbursts at some Republican rallies.
Granted, both MSNBC and FOX were in the midst of their partisan shows at the hour these stories broke.
CNN kind of shot down the middle, talking about the Minnesota outbursts in the context of a Campbell Brown show focused on race in the election, and then there was straight coverage and analysis of the Troopergate report.
It will be interesting to see what sort of spin Olbermann and Hannity, the loudest voices from the left and right, respectively, have to say when they return to their shows tonight.
Photo, above: Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain takes back the microphone from Gayle Quinnell who said she read about Sen. Barack Obama and "that he was an Arab," during a question and answer time at a town hall meeting Oct. 10 in Lakeville, Minn. Copyrighted AP Photo by Jim Mone.
All the discussion of William Ayers, the former domestic terrorist Republicans are trying to tether to Obama, has inadvertently got Flo Rida’s In the Ayer stuck in my brain. I’m waiting for the satire version: "William Ayers, Ayers, A-A, Ayers, Ayers." Photo, right, of Flo Rida.
He sees the future: Andrew Sullivan, who makes me feel like a lazy blogger, has a hilarious pop culture reference in a post titled “The First Few Moments of a Palin Presidency.”
Forbes Auto has a fun slideshow on the rides of the candidates. Seems the Ford Escape Hybrid is the hip choice among politicians, with a consultant saying in an accompanying article, “Hybrids have become the auto equivalent of wearing a red ribbon to show support for the fight against AIDS.”
Logging into Twitter this morning, I was amazed to see Dean Smith at No. 1 in “hot political topics.” Turns out, the former North Carolina basketball coach is endorsing Obama today. Well color Carolina blue.
Third presidential debate moderator Bob Schieffer apparently plans to press the candidates on specifics and make them address the question at hand on Wednesday night. Good luck with that.
The Debate Drink folks are soliciting drinking game suggestions for the next debate. Here at Copious Notes, we recommend a drink for every time McCain says, “I know how,” which he said at least a half dozen times during last week’s debate.
Fun fact: On Morning Joe today, NBC politcal director Chuck Todd made the mind-bending point that the last time a Republican won the White House without a Nixon or Bush on the ticket was 1928.
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