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Posts by Rachel Sklar
Hillary's Bosnia Lie a Big Hit on YouTube
Posted by Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post on March 27, 2008 at 7:05 AM.
Remember last week when Barack Obama's race speech racked up millions of views on YouTube? Well, history is repeating itself this week for Hillary Clinton — though not for anything she'd want voters to see. YouTubed videos showing the debunking of her Bosnia claim have been viewed at least two million times over the past two days — at least — showing her claims of running across the tarmac to avoid gunfire to footage of her and her then-teenaged daughter, Chelsea, being greeted by a sweet little girl. The most-viewed of the videos, a pull of a CBS News segment that has currently clocked 1,373,104 views, is also the #1 most-viewed video today and # 4 this week (Obama's race speech is #5); other versions of the video have gotten 388,057, 31,555, 25,786, 4,190 and 2,149 views respectively (ironically, CBS' own video on their YouTube channel only has 4,205 views so far).
This, incidentally, does not include Hillary-in-Bosnia related videos, like the CBS News 1996 report on the trip itself, with 95,996 views; a clip from the report on it from "NBC Nightly News" (26,997 views) and from CNN's Jack Cafferty (1,028 views); and "Hillary in Tuzla: The Tale of Bosnian Sniper Fire (TRAILER)" at 295,823 views.
It's hard to fully canvass the entire world of online video, but as far as YouTube goes, these numbers are on par with what Obama's race speech had pulled in in roughly two days (and that video may have had some "video view optimizing" help, according to Peter Kafka at the Silicon Alley Insider). Presumably the Clinton campaign isn't pushing this video (it's not on her official YouTube page, unlike Obama's speech on his). Still, there's no dispute that it's getting watched, a lot. Even from the time I started this post, the views on several of those clips have jumped noticeably.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Jon Stewart: Obama's Race Speech "Spoke to Americans as Though They Were Adults" [VIDEO]
Posted by Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post on March 20, 2008 at 5:44 AM.
Jon Stewart and the Daily Show gang have had easier targets of mockery than Barack Obama delivering one of the most warmly received speeches of the campaign (if not that most warmly received speech — though it's duking it out with Barack Obama after winning the Iowa primary and Barack Obama after winning the South Carolina primary). Still, they gave it their best shot, even including a "Whatchoo talkin' bout, Obama?" and imagining how crazy it is over the holidays with all of Obama's many multi-ethnic and "many-hued" smörgåsbord of relatives running around. Yeah, I said smörgåsbord.
The clip also showed the difficulty in joking about "black anger"; a joke involving locking the car didn't quite hit (in our estimation), and the response to a KKK sight gag can onloy be described as "clapter." Still, it all fell away at the end when Stewart revealed how he really felt about the speech when he let the arch, eyebrow-cocked exterior fall for a moment and quietly marveled at the fact that "at 11:00 on a Tuesday, a prominent politician spoke to Americans about race, as though they were adults." Was it Jon Stewart funny or Tina Fey funny? Watch it to your right and decide for yourself.
Tina Fey Defends Hillary: "B**ches Get Stuff Done!" [VIDEO]
Posted by Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post on February 24, 2008 at 8:47 AM.
Is Bitch the New Black? If you believe Tina Fey on "Saturday Night Live" last night, then damn straight; if you don't, you may well be burning up the NBC message boards right now. Last night politcs was center stage on SNL, with an epic cold open spoofing the latest CNN debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama (over 8 minutes), a supersized "Weekend Update" (11 minutes), and about as close as SNL could come to a live, on-air endorsement of Hillary Clinton by host and returning alumna Tina Fey.
In a segment on Update called "Women's News" ("It's a great time to be a lady in America!") Fey celebrated the news of a woman running for president -- and then (after a bitty swipe at Oprah), proceeded to take aim at a number of Hillary-hating arguments: That if elected she wouldn't be able to "control" hubby Bill Clinton and there'd be "co-presidents" in the White House ("'Cause that would be terrible, having two intelligent, qualified people working together to solve problems -- why would you let Starsky talk to Hutch?"); reassuring the audience that, even though they were married, they were having "about as much sex as George Bush and Jeb Bush are" and smacking down Rush Limbaugh for his comments that "America's not ready to watch their president turn into an old lady. "Really?" asked Fey. "'Cause they didn't seem to mind when Ronald Reagan did that."
But what bugged her most, said Fey, was when people said that Clinton was a bitch. "Yeah, she is," said Fey. "And so am I -- and so is this one over here," gesturing at Amy Poehler. "Yeah, deal with it," said Poehler. Fey's point: Bitches got things done, yo, and that's why Hillary would be a good president. "So I'm sayin, it's not too late, Texas and Ohio, get on board! Bitch is the new black!" An exhortation of voters to the polls to vote their bitch in? Bill Clinton probably couldn't have done it more effectively. Commenters are already incensed (both on the NBC chat boards and in our comments sections, so far) but to be fair, it's about equal to the Lorne Michaels endorsement of Obama, who said Obama would be hard to mock because he was a "truly heroic figure."
¡Ay Caramba! Stephen Colbert Interviews Lou Dobbs As Spanish Alter Ego [VIDEO]
Posted by Rachel Sklar, Huffington Post on January 18, 2008 at 8:14 PM.
Gimmicks are doing a good job of replacing writers on The Colbert Report, if last Thursday's interview with Lou Dobbs is any indication. Colbert turned the interview on its head with a hilarious conceit of interviewing Dobbs as his Spanish-language counterpart, "Esteban Colberto." Did hilarity ensue? Oh yes -- including an in-studio barbed-wire fence, which Dobbs viewed with approval: "It's very impressive, and better than some of the fence along our border now!"
Dobbs seemed to be taking it all in stride and enjoying himself, especially since Colberto was plugging his book, The War On The Middle Class. More to the point, Colbert conducted the entire interview in Spanish...and Dobbs answered in English. Also, dancing girls! I think Colbert rocks a purple blazer almost as well as Cindy McCain. High praise, that.
The Racist Returns: Don Imus Signs "Eight Figure, Multi Year Contract" With Top Radio Station
Posted by Rachel Sklar on October 16, 2007 at 10:10 AM.
This post, written by Rachel Sklar, originally appeared on The Huffington Post
Yesterday, Drudge boldly declared a resurrection: That of Don Imus, who has apparently struck an "eight-figure, multiyear contract" with WABC for the triumphant return of "Imus in the Morning" to the airwaves on what, according to Drudge, is "the nation's most listened to talk station." Obviously you will recall that the disgraced shock jock (and that's an occupation with a pretty low bar for 'disgrace') was ousted after calling members of the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" in a double dose of racism and sexism.
You know the rest: Contrition tour with Al Sharpton; denouncement by high-profile former guests; cut loose by MSNBC on the TV side and CBS on the WFAN radio side; those last two aren't necessarily in chronological order. Then Imus had nothing left to do but slink into sad obscurity, right? Wrong -- he filed a $120 million lawsuit against CBS and settled for a reputed $20 million plus no restrictions on when he could go back on the air. Plus he couldn't say anything mean about Les Moonves. Hey, Moonves has his priorities straight.
And now, a "high-impact resurrection" -- a phrase that predates Drudge, incidentally, in a New York magazine profile by Robert Kolker titled "The Resurrection of Don Imus" and after the settlement was announced Imus' buddy Kinky Friedman* said: "He's very much like Jesus. He's coming back and boy is he PO'd." Well, apparently the meek shall inherit, albeit with a 40-second delay, just in case.
It's always interesting to hear what they have to say about it on "Morning Joe" -- the show which replaced "Imus in the Morning" on MSNBC, hosted by Joe Scarborough with Mika Brzezinski and the oft-joining Willie Geist; in August when the news of the settlement came down Scarborough went off on a tear, telling his producers to shut up when they suggested via his earpiece that he congratulate Imus on the air: "Like I've been on the Don Imus suck up train from the very beginning...Don Imus always hated my guts." Today's commentary was calmer -- less railing against th "sharks" of the TV industry -- but still fun, the video is to your right.
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
Saturday Night Live's Tribute to Ahmadinejad: "Iran So Far" [VIDEO]
Posted by Rachel Sklar on October 1, 2007 at 5:06 AM.
This post, written by Rachel Sklar, originally appeared on The Huffington Post
For a devoted fan, there are many takeaways from last night's kickoff to the 33rd season of "Saturday Night Live," but for the media and the internet there will be only one: Last Saturday night's digital short featuring Andy Samberg singing a love song to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, played with bearded brilliance by Fred Armisen, and featuring Maroon 5's Adam Levine plus a cameo from Jake Gyllenhaal. That's what's going to go viral, and NBC has finally learned how to help it along by posting the video to its YouTube page by 9am this morning.
Just because the video will be the biggest takeaway, though, does not mean it will be the only takeaway -- not by a long shot in a show that included a great hosting turn by LeBron James, surprise self-mocking cameo by Kanye West and the kickoff to SNL's take on the presidential campaign. But first, because we know you're straight trippin', boo, the vid -- and lines like this: "You can deny the Holocaust all you want, but you can't deny that there's something between us." Aw. Who says romance is dead?
Romney Makes Jokes at 21-Year-Old Tasering Victim's Expense
Posted by Rachel Sklar on September 18, 2007 at 2:00 PM.
This post, written by Rachel Sklar, originally appeared on The Huffington Post
How else to explain the goofy smile and jovial manner he displayed while discussing the tasering of a University of Florida student by police? By now you've no doubt heard of the tasering during yesterday Q&A with Senator John Kerry (at least on Fox, it's running neck and neck with Bill Hemmer reporting from outside OJ Simpson's Las Vegas jail), but here's the gist:
Student Andrew Meyer, 21, apparently not a Republican, got excited while asking Kerry why he conceded the 2004 election and other questions relating to frustration about the Bush administration. As he launched into one more question, two officers grabbed him to pull him backward. Meyer resisted, more officers got involved, Kerry protested and offered to answer the question, more officers forced him to the ground, Meyer continued to protest that he had done nothing wrong, Meyer was tased. So! This is all over the place today, because it was (a) a student (b) at a school event who was (c) tased. At a (d) Kerry event. Even the most law-and-order type of person has to concede that the circumstances are...unusual; for most people who saw the video and saw that Meyer, though tall, was pretty outnumbered by the cops and was being sat on by them, probably hadn't quite merited that level of tasing action. Either way, you'd probably manifest some appropriate reaction. Right?
Not if you're Mitt Romney! Romney kept that same goofy smile on his face the whole time, joking about how usually it's the politician that gets tased (er, right, just after he's forced to ride tied to the roof of a car) and not expressing much of an opinion either way about whether this indicated a worrisome and excessive use of force (tasers: meant to subdue dangerous criminals in extreme situations; this was a student who really really wanted John Kerry to answer a question). But! He sure did have an opinion on the next topic: Barry Manilow being canceled from his appearance on The View for refusing to appear with conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
Look at the difference in his face -- the second is clearly a serious issue. This is a paraphrase because our DVR popped off pause, but essentially when Steve Doocy asked if Manilow should have been allowed to give Hasselbeck the Heismann, Romney was outraged, and said, in effect "No way! Barry Manilow should have to answer the tough questions!" Sort of funny the circumstances under which Mitt Romney gets outraged about who should be made to answer what questions when. Wait, what was that about him skipping the black voter debate?
Read the rest of the post on the flip side »
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