This is what Tina Fey nailed last night on Saturday Night Live: Sarah Palin's incuriosity. Her flirtatious way of finessing her ignorance of the issues. Her provinciality - and I don't mean just her odd vowels, although Fey was pitch perfect on them, too.
(WTF is up with those vowels, anyway? I know a few people from Alaska, and none of them ever spoke like that. They almost have a North Dakotan ring to them. I say this with some authority, since my own vowels still have a slight Dakotan/Minnesotan cast.)
I don't know if comedy can steer the course of an election. I don't know if it should. I do know that I get better TV news from Jon Stewart than from any of the "news" channels. And that Darrell Hammond's impersonation of Al Gore and his "lockbox" on SNL in 2000 is still with me, much clearer in my memory than the actual presidential debates.
If comedy should function as a kingmaker (or a queen-breaker?), then Tina Fey is the gal I want in charge. The only part of her impersonation that didn't quite convince me? The laughing intelligence in her eyes that Fey can't quite hide, no matter whose glasses she's wearing.
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2 comments:
Yes! Lieberman in the bathtub with Darrell Hammond as Gore. That image is seered in my brain forever. Most memorable from the actual debates - Bush's stock answer when confused by numbers: "fuzzy math." And we put that guy in the Whitehouse. Depressed now.
Gosh, I'd forgotten about Lieberman in the tub. Man, those were the days. :-)
Will Farrell was just brilliant as Bush, but darn it, people voted for him anyway. Somedays I think people are positively enamored of candidates that just don't seem "too smart." Well, we got that, *big time.*
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