For the second week in a row Saturday Night Live has taken shots at Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin — but this time it moves from mocking to blatant smearing by suggesting in a skit that the Alaska governor’s husband, Todd Palin, was having sex with the couple’s daughters.
In the skit, show guest host James Franco plays an assignment editor at the New York Times who’s running an editorial meeting. Announcing that 50 reporters were being sent to look for dirt on Sarah Palin, a Times “reporter” asks,
“What about the husband? You know he’s doing those daughters. I mean, come on. It’s Alaska.”
You can watch the skit below.
The final shot in the skit is an image of a New York Times page, featuring these headlines:
“While No Direct Evidence of Incest in Palin Family Emerges, Counter Evidence Remains Agonizingly Elusive� and “In a Small Alaska Town, Doubts Still Linger.�
I’m not laughing. Are you? Accusing Todd Palin of incest goes beyond skits and humor. What would happen if someone made a skit of Obama and his little girls? Or Jill Biden and her sons?
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Political satire is not mocking or smearing, becuase it is SATIRE. But if this is what you say, and I didn’t look at it, then I agree. Some subjects are more than in bad taste–they are taboo–and I think that this subject would be one of them. SNL should apologize to everyone. But do not hold your breath.
September 22nd, 2008 at 1:32 pm
i agree ed.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:10 pm
In fifteenth century Europe gossips were publicly flogged. It may be an idea whose time has come again. You just know that if you put a leftie to the lash they would really squeal like a little piggy. Worth the price of admission.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:12 pm
Great idea, Hondo. But the problem is : who’s going to decide who is a gossip and who is not?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
allen
don’t you see this as a smear? (or gossip?)
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:22 pm
You know, a year ago I wrote an article at Girl on the Right talking about incest in native families. I was thoroughly beaten down by the left for even suggesting it.
Todd Palin is half Eskimo… I wonder if my lefty detractors thought the joke was funny. Anyone?
**crickets**
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Totally missed the point, didn’t you? The gag was a huge knock on the New York Times! That’s why Tina Fey fought tooth and nail to kill the piece. The whole skit was about how completely whacko and out-of-touch with reality the NYT is and how little they care about jumping on rumor and innuendo for a juicy story.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
I do see it as a smear.
SNL should be given a slap on the face, and new writers, for being unfunny AND uncouth.
My question was of a more general nature:if you are going to go back to flogging gossips, who’s going to decide?
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:35 pm
No SteveF. I didn’t miss the point. The point was to AGAIN smear Sarah Palin and her family. Would they have ever dared to do this to Obama or Biden’s family? Of course not.
If you believe that was simply about how out of touch the NYT is, i have a bridge to nowhere you can buy.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Again, this just isn’t funny. Satire is fine, if it’s remotely on target and funny. Last time I checked, we still had some reasonable people in this country who don’t find stuff like this funny.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
I guess the Tina Fey skit was a fluke. SNL is so bad now that it should be replaced with reruns of old SNL.
September 22nd, 2008 at 2:43 pm
A little fact checking will show that when Sen Obama was notified that his daughters were pictured on Lindsay Ashfords website ( he is child porn king )under what candidate has the cutest kids, he did not request the pictures be removed until after he decided to run for prez. Many blogs fighting pedo’s notified the candidates as did many blog readers. His staff took a so what attitude.
Sooo…why not do something constructive with their liberal anger and go after actual pedos’ instead of trying to invent one.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Come on, you people need to have a sense of humor. It was a joke and not even directed at Sarah Palin, it was meant to mock the NYT. No need to get all upset about it. Maybe it was crossing a line, but that is what they want. You people getting all pissy about it is probably just what they were going for. This is the most publicity that show has had in years. Congratulations for playing right in their hands.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:26 pm
JoAnne, liberals already are trying to address the threat of actual pedo’s: Obama supported teaching even small children how to recognize and avoid threatening behavior by sexual predators. But that support was spun by the right into support for a sex-ed program for kindergarterners. Watching Republicans call foul on smearing, especially on this site, is ludicrous. SNL is doing what it’s always done: tawdry, biased, stupid humor.
I swear, does this site comment on nothing but Hollywood nonsense? Is that all you care about???
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
june
i don’t think blogging about how the media and hollywood perpetuate completely unfounded smears against a vice presidential candidate is nonsense.
so sorry you do.
September 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
I said “hollywood nonsense.” “Nonsense” referred to SNL. Not your blogging.
I’m sorry you’re worried about dumb jokes on SNL that several of your party’s supporters recognize as an obvious joke about the media (see above) instead of listening to what candidates are actually saying. LIKE, McCain’s profession that he does not understand the economy. Troublesome, at a time like this? Naw, I guess not. Let’s keep fretting about the media bias. Remember that left wing moonbat Bill O’Reilly when he attacked Jaime Lynn Spears’ parents for bearing the blame for her teen pregnancy? That was so unbelievably sexist and unfair. That mean old left wing media.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Kate, to be fair, both sides use the same tactics, they just use different venues. It’s politics. McCain is no angel. Doesn’t mean I like it.
And I don’t quite understand what you are saying Joanne. Do you think Obama is only against pedophiles because it’s a political issue? Is this some sort of controversial topic where we have to figure out the candidates’ stances on pedophiles?
I’m pretty sure McCain and Obama are against incest.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
allen
i don’t ever recall incest being “joked” about to bash a candidate before do you?
this is way overboard and not even in the league of political dirty tricks.
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:24 pm
That was funny I don’t care who you are, that was a joke and should be left as such. A funny joke!
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Is it any dirtier than this? :
“Yeah. There were some pretty vile and hurtful things said during the South Carolina primary,� Sen. McCain told Dadmag.com in a 2000 interview afterwards, referring to how Bush campaign operatives allegedly called thousands of white South Carolina voters falsely alleging that McCain had fathered an illegitimate Black baby.
In fact, McCain and his wife, Cindy, had adopted a dark-skinned little girl from the foreign country of Bangladesh.
It didn’t stop there.
There were phone calls that said, ‘Do you know that Cindy McCain’s a drug addict?’ Or phone calls that said, ‘Do you know the McCains have a Black baby?’ Hundreds of thousands of those calls went out,� McCain said in the 2003 book, Man of the People: the Life of John McCain.
I’m not picking on Bush, I’m saying it’s just SNL, and they do deserve a slap on the face, as I said, and a stern warning. But don’t make this overblown, because politicians have been doing much worse to each other with much more of an impact than anything SNL can do or has done.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:23 pm
SNL has not been funny for years yet NBC continues to somehow find a sponsor for it. However, for NBC to allow that Palin skit to air is beyond irresponsible…it’s dispicable. Personally, I hope the Palins sue NBC, GE and SNL. I guarantee if I were on the jury, the Palins would own NBC! That skit isn’t even entertaining, much less humorous. The writers must be a bunch of mal-content wannabe comics who have imbibed in way too much stuff that fries the brain cells.
September 22nd, 2008 at 5:40 pm
Allen…I was just wondering if the skit might have been funnier had they used factual situations instead of their perverted and disgusting *brains* , regarding a candidates child/children.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:02 pm
For those who think this is funny, or laugh at the ‘humor’ of Sandra B, you might want to read book called The Theatre of the Weimar Republic. There are real consequences for this sort of thing. And, those consequences are far more serious than these summerstock thespians realize.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:20 pm
allen
actually yes i think incest is far “dirtier” then accusing someone of fathering a child out of wedlock or being addicted to prescription drugs.
call me crazy that way.
September 22nd, 2008 at 6:22 pm
there is also the bigger picture here of not just one isolated dirty trick.
the palin family has had smear after smear after smear thrown at them and how long as Sarah’s nomination been in effect? 3 weeks?