Hillary Night Live! (Blame Canada)

When it comes down to picking the next President of the United States, some of the credit OR blame belongs to Canada. Okay, make that a Canadian-born comedy giant. Lorne Michaels, presiding over an increasingly irrelevant SNL, proved you could never count him or the show out--again. Saturday Night (live), he played a political trump card by putting Hillary on the show, a couple of days before her critical make or break primaries. It was a huge story by Sunday morning.



Senator Clinton wasn’t just ON “Saturday Night Live”, but appeared during the Cold Open, the part everyone watches before later deciding “this show sucks” and going to bed. If that wasn’t a de facto endorsement, those who stuck around saw a Robert Smigel TV Funhouse bit that included a cartoon Michelle Obama puking and the Senator hornswaggling Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton to keep them out of sight. (Sen. Obama appeared four months ago)

Michaels’ coup raced him past would-be Kingmaker Matt Drudge as comedy political influence. Drudge, who has been too busy endangering British royals recently to unleash another Hillary broadside didn’t even post another unflattering picture of Hillary Sunday morning, and ignored the SNL appearance altogether. (My website checks were done between 9-10 AM PST, Sunday).
Drudge ran a Politico.com link and to a day-old LA Times analysis. At that time, the LATimes website didn’t show the appearance, but the NYTimes did, with a photo.)

Hillary’s appearance was billboarded on CNN.com and was the lede story on HuffingtonPost.com complete with a photo of Hillary and Amy Poehler—who’d played her in a sketch—embracing. It was second lede on Crooksandliars.com.

MSNBC.com had the story, but not prominently, and next to a picture of Senator Obama, below the headline “Obama Spends heavily to Seek Knockout Blow.” Their lede was Mahmoud Amadinajad’s visit to Iraq, featuring a picture of the Iranian head honcho clasping hands with an Iraqi official and Ned Beatty. Okay, it looked like Ned Beatty.

To get a “Fair and Balanced” (heh-heh-heh) approach, I checked out Foxnews.com, where the top headline was “Don’t Give Up, Huck.” This was followed by “Russians Pick Putin’s Successor” and “Report: Women are Superior Liars.” (I’m NOT making that up. With FOX, you never have to invent the absurdities.) The Right must be worried about Hillary if Drudge ignores her and Fox points out you can’t trust no women no how, anyway. Incidentally, Fox’s headlines were across from a photo of a hotttie wearing an “I survived Roe v. Wade” t-shirt, an ad for—you’ll never guess—a conservative T-shirt company.

My Fair and Balanced approach requires me to report that by 10AM, the Foxies had their own account of Hillary’s appearance on SNL, noting the candidate is doing “whatever it takes” to make a “late comeback.” Their slow response, one suspects, was due to an inability to obtain earlier White House approval for the story.

Hillary’s pantsuit doesn’t contain the deep pockets that come with Obama’s wardrobe, but she is taking advantage of free TV. In addition to SNL, she did a cameo on Letterman last week, and will be on “The Daily Show” today, where Jon Stewart will undoubtedly aim not only t he first, but all his questions to her.