Sarah Palin on SNL? Just say NO!

[Mark Crispin Miller]

The New York Post reports that Sarah Palin has been scheduled to host  NBC's "Saturday

Night Live" on 10/25:

        The New York Post is reporting that Palin's appearance on Oct. 25 is signed, sealed, and       

        delivered. Soccer moms and Joe Sixpacks, listen up. Get your beer, mooseburgers and

        caribou dips ready. Sarah Palin is doing "Saturday Night Live." Not Tina Fey doing Sarah

        Palin doing "Saturday Night Live." But the Sarah Herself.

        She has already OK'd it. She's booked. It's confirmed. Done deal. Sketches are being

        sketched as we speak. She - eyeglasses, haircomb, designer jacket and trunkful of

        gosh-darns, golly-gees and gol-dangs - will be on "SNL" Saturday night, Oct. 25. Sarah's

        rehearsal time has already been penciled in for Friday the 24th. And it's because she

        wants to do it.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/10102008/gossip/cindy/golly__palin_to_play_herself_on_snl_132932.htm

Now, if Joe Biden is guest-hosting on the Saturday before or after, then it's fair enough that

Palin get to do it, too. (By rights, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney and Bob Barr should also

have their turns.) But if the network has been pressured to have Palin on--whether by GE

or by the GOP, or both--to "balance" Tina Fey's satiric thrusts, then it is not okay.

SNL should not have any major candidates, or mainstream politicans, on as hosts, because

the ties between the media and the political establishment are too tight and too many as it is.

But having Palin on is indefensible on several other grounds as well.

First of all, there's her extremism. Can you think of any other Rapture-ready theocrat, or

radical anti-environmentalist, or male supremacist, or stealth secessonist, who would be

welcome on that show? The fact that most Americans have not yet heard that those are her

positions makes it all the worse that she would guest-host SNL, which shouldn't be a part

of her campaign's attempt to cast her as your average "hockey mom." (Those of you who've

seen Bob Roberts no doubt feel a certain chill right now.)

And then there's Palin's on-the-stump behavior--which most of us have heard about.

Stoked by her infuriating lies and homicidal innuendo (the woman's very good at that), the

crowds around her whoop it up like lynch mobs, calling for Obama's death (the Secret

Service is investigating one such outburst) and otherwise exulting in their hatred:

        (PHILADELPHIA) As the crowd cheered at a Sarah Palin rally this morning in Johnstown,  

        Pennsylvania, a man in the audience grinned as he held up a stuffed monkey doll with a

        Barack Obama bumper sticker wrapped across its forehead.       

http://www.cbsnews.com/blogs/2008/10/11/politics/fromtheroad/entry4515246.shtml. (See the

video at http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4515218n.)

So why would SNL help "humanize" this vicious character? What is NBC's excuse, and/or

Lorne Michaels', for giving her an opportunity, ten days before Election Day, to wink and

grin and say "Doggone it!" and "You betcha!" (and also, winningly, to mock herself for

doing so)? And how can all the show's hip regulars, including Tina Fey, put up with this?

The fact is that they shouldn't have to: Sarah Palin has no place on SNL, and you should let

them know.

 

NBC: 212-664-4444

General Electric: 212-575-6000, or 1-800-626-2000

NBC and GE are both headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, NY, NY, 10112.

NBC's FAQ online: http://www.nbc.com/Footer/Contact_Us/

(Any tips re: how to reach the network or the show itself--and their corporate sponsors

--would be much appreciated.)

MCM

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting that Sarah Palin's appearance on Saturday Night Live is "signed, sealed, and delivered" for October 25.  In the past week Palin has seemed to delight in exciting her crowds until they become angry mobs calling for the death of Barack Obama. An appearance on SNL usually raises a candidate in the polls. If you believe it is wrong to give free public exposure to a  demagogue who with innuendo and blatant lies turns a crowd into a mob rabid against the opponent and shouting, "Kill him!", contact NBC now to protest Palin's appearance on the show. If you google "NBC contact" there will be a drop-down menu of programs---just click onto Saturday Night Live and write your message.