Over the past week we have seen Sarah Palin appear on all the news networks expressing her outrage at the David Letterman joke. Her outrage was justified and last night Letterman issued an official apology. It was a long time in coming, but it finally came. This really should be the end of this episode. There is an old saying that when you live in glass houses you should not throw stones. So hopefully Palin will now step away from the microphone. On September 22, 2008, SNL did a skit in which they joked about Todd Palin having sex with his daughters. This was deplorable, but we never saw Sarah Palin making the rounds expressing her outrage. What we did see was Palin appearing on SNL October 18, 2008 at the height of the election season. So let’s give Letterman a little slack here. He should have apologized and now he has, but he should not be fired. It was a bad joke, it was a horrible joke, but he who is without sin should throw the first stone, and right now there are no clean hands.
Saturday Night Live makes fun of everything and everybody. During the election their ratings went straight through the roof. Tina Fey’s dead on impression of Sarah Palin kept us in stitches. This past Saturday night Gov. Paterson who is legally blind was the subject of one of their skits. SNL believes America will laugh at anything and that includes a physical disability. Is a disability a laughing matter? Sadly, we live in the an age that has become desensitized to human pain or shortcomings. We see people beating up people on youtube as onlookers laugh or simply walk by. We watch people commit suicide ,and we simply become bored because the victim is not dying quick enough. We are losing our humanity and that simply is not funny.
Sarah Palin is taking her winking and blinking to Saturday Night Live. Tina Fey has done a spot on imitation of the vice-presidential candidate. So now the real thing will appear on the show. Palin will do well in this scripted environment. We saw her at her best at the Republican convention so we know she can deliver a punchline. She is also great on the stump when she is whipping the crowd into a frenzy. When she’s got her notes she is truly a force to be reckoned with, but why have we not seen her on Meet the Press? On Meet the Press, Face the Nation or This Week on ABC the guests have to fly without a net. They are not privy to the questions in advance. They have to solely rely on their knowledge of the world. So why does she do comedy but not news? I think we all know the answer to this question.
