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Saturday Night Live's Version of Hillary vs. Obama [VIDEO]

Posted by Adam Howard, AlterNet at 1:58 PM on February 15, 2008.


Obama is asked by fawning press, "Are you comfortable?" Meanwhile, Hillary insists she had always planned on getting blown out in ten straight states.
SNL: Democratic Debate

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This video is the absolutely hilarious opening of this past weekend's Saturday Night Live. The first new episode since the writer's strike was one of the show's highest rated in years and one of its sharpest satirically. This particular debate sketch brilliantly skewers both Obama and Hillary.

The mainstream press' frequent adoring coverage of Obama is mocked, one of his debate questions is, "Are you comfortable?" Meanwhile, Hillary's absurd tendency to dismiss every primary defeat as expected is lampooned. Loved Amy Poehler's line about how "Getting blown out by Senator Obama in Maryland has been a dream of mine since childhood."

Even Hillary Clinton herself has weighed in on the sketch, saying it shows the degree in which the press is biased against her. Judge for yourself, check out the clip to your right for more.

AlterNet is a nonprofit organization and does not make political endorsements. The opinions expressed by its writers are their own.

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Adam Howard is the editor of PEEK.


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i want my 3 minutes back
Posted by: KaptainSpiffy on Feb 25, 2008 12:15 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
cut and paste alternet.

must be a slow day in america

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kinda sad...
Posted by: andrewstromotich on Feb 25, 2008 12:42 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
when SNL are the only ones talking about the skewed coverage. was pretty good though...

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So unfunny
Posted by: EdinIowa on Feb 25, 2008 12:57 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I turned it to something else Saturday night. It wasn't too many months ago when the press was fawning all over Hillary.

From what little I watched SNL sucks.

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Torture
Posted by: kepstein7777 on Feb 25, 2008 3:26 PM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Time to put SNL out of its misery.

If Michael Mukasey had to watch that impression of Obama, would he consider it torture?

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When?
Posted by: RobNLA on Feb 25, 2008 4:14 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Remember when the press was declaring Hillary as the inevitable Democratic nominee before any primary or caucus took place?

At that same time, the media was floating false stories about Obama being a muslim and attending a madrassa school when he was younger.

What about today? Sure Hillary is taking her lumps, but so is Obama. Look that false stories about the non-pledge of allegiance or attacks against Mrs. Obama's "proud" statement.

The difference is Obama and his campaign respond to attacks and diffuse them. Meanwhile Hillary invites more attacks by doing things like criticizing Obama for plagiarism, while using her husband's and Edwards' words (without due credit) the same night.

The entire unfair media is the same garbage Republicans claim when stories don't go their way. It's basically attack the messager but don't address the message, or the underlying problem. And the problem in this case is Hillary's mismanagement of her campaign. She can't blame the media for her troubles and neither can her followers.

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» RE: When? Posted by: andrewstromotich
Oh please
Posted by: derfmoosepatrol on Feb 25, 2008 7:31 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It isn't just the mainstream press, it's all media, including AlterNet, that's fawning over Obama. God forbid anyone criticize, or even poke fun at, the almighty Obama.

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» RE: Oh please! It was SATIRE! Posted by: foreverhope
The MSM can fake fawn all they want; they win & they'll be wiping the shit off their faces come Nov
Posted by: xbj on Feb 26, 2008 8:03 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
When President McCain assumes office because ObamaNation fell for the greatest Karl Rove/GOP ploy in history... the Judas Goat "couldn't EVER win" candidacy of BHO.

SNL GETS IT.

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Remember when?
Posted by: cisc on Feb 26, 2008 8:08 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It took Rove, Karen Hughes, and Dan Bartlett working full time to create a figure to build a cult of personality around. Trouble is the figure was a phony, the reality they created didn't quite transfer to real reality. When you see the water carriers wringing their hands and whining about the "cult of personality" springing up around Obama there is a reason. He is the real thing. The wave is organic. It is forming at the grassroots. Obama is not a creation of the "opinion makers" he is a guy with the right stuff at the right time (a desperate time)saying the right things. Thank God he has Michelle to keep his feet on the ground. As much as I would like to see a woman President, because it is way past time for that too, Hillary is business as usual. She most certainly is very good at that but we have extrordinary problems that can only be solved by extrordinary measures. Talking with people who don't agree with us both here and abroad may sound elementary-but if it is, why isn't it being done? When 49% automatically will not listen to a word you say, how can it be done?

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» RE: emember when? Posted by: andrewstromotich
» RE: emember when? Posted by: Lauren
» RE: emember when? Posted by: Lauren
A lot more damning of Obamania
Posted by: ceti on Feb 26, 2008 9:16 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Hillary actually has it wrong. The SNL skit is a lot more brutal towards Obama than her, as it hits at the core of the Obama cult of personality and how journalists are biased towards him. That she can't get in a word edgewise and is berated by the moderator reinforces her message that the press continues to be unfair to her.

Or maybe that's what she meant? Hard to tell..

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What?
Posted by: redfrog on Feb 26, 2008 12:47 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That wasn't Campbell Brown?

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skewed coverage is a myth
Posted by: sss4r on Feb 26, 2008 1:56 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
hillary protests this skit because it's poking fun at her constant blaming of the media, rather than her inability to run a campaign, appeal to voters, inspire the american people, or to face reality, much like bush--she is in denial of losing, and that is truly what this comical skit is about, her losing, not bias.

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satire?
Posted by: chepenudo on Feb 26, 2008 2:08 PM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I thought satire was supposed to contain humor. *Sigh* SNL's is suffering from HDS ...Humor Degradation Syndrome. If they want to make a point, at least they should make it funny.

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» RE: satire? Posted by: chepenudo
Truly funny and profound
Posted by: metamind on Feb 27, 2008 9:37 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I found this skit even more funny watching it here on the Internet. The first time I saw it was on TV and my mouth was hanging open in astounded disbelief. SNL hit the nail on the head.

This campaign never was about the real issues ... like the "false flag" operation called "9-11" created to justify a "neverending war of domination and conquest," the soaring national debt, the collapse of the dollar and the impending collapse of the entire economy.

This campaign was designed to be a giant show for us to enjoy as the nation slips into the abyss.

Obama is the star of this show, even better than Hillary who was originally cast as the star.

It's theater ... both on SNL and in real life ... to distract us from our grim situation.

We always need humor. If there is to be a "saviour of the day" then it is humor like this. We need to remember to "not take ourselves too seriously."

I predict President Obama will discover that transforming this nation is more difficult than convincing Americans to vote for him.

So enjoy the show ... while it lasts.
Reality will be here soon enough.

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Tomorrow can never be predicted
Posted by: thebullfrog on Feb 27, 2008 5:21 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's amazing all the doom and gloom that is forecast for either candidate in either party. No one can control tomorrow, nor does anyone know what will happen. All anyone can do is try and make the best decision possible, correct the mistakes as they happen (which can take a very long time) and take it one day at a time. It's the way it's been done since the beginning of time.

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The skit just illuminates...
Posted by: ShrubtheWarcriminal on Feb 28, 2008 8:47 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... why the difference between these two is not of any substance and truly progressive Democrates and even old fashioned Republicans will be looking for a third party candidate this time around.

According to Barack, he's going to bring about change by changing the atmosphere in Washington. Create consensus. That's the argument anyway - we all remember the Change Revolution that was the Democratic take back of Congress in 2006, and how well that has paid off for the average American and the guys getting shot at in Iraq.

In Obama's world, the Republicans who have been hard at work screwing the country over for as long as possible are going to repent, rather than do what they can to get what they want.

Have any of you given pause to think about his bipartisan change schtick for two seconds? Bipartisanship doesn't work with the current crop of Republicans. Coming to an agreement with them on something like Social Security implies half-destroying it, rather than fully destroying it. (Incidentally, Goldman Sachs, Obama's largest contributor, is a huge investment bank that has been committed to the partial privatization of Social Security and banking industry deregulation. Keep that in mind when you hear Obama talking about "protecting Social Security".)

But this is how it goes in the Amerikkka today. Politics is cyclical.

When the right-wing gets the pendulum swinging their way, they run amok with deregulation, union busting, militarism, slashing social programs, and corporate welfare.

Then the left will get the ball and they try to make friends and play nice with the guys that have been lobbing grenades at them for the past years, basically just treading water, no real progress. Then the right gets power again and they run their playbook again, running rampant. Essentially three steps backward and then run in place (at best).

And on and on rightward-ho we go, until unilateral invasions on false pretenses are something that impeachment is "off the table" about, and torture's something that's sort of, yeah, unfortunate, but hey what are people gonna do. Oh yeah, that's where we are today folks.

The fact that a segment of the population rejects that philosophy is an indictment of the Democratic Party, not of the people they turn away as a result of what they choose to stand for.

Take single-payer healthcare; it's the most affordable, most efficient way of providing it. The way it works is to pay doctors money to make people healthy, rather than pay insurance companies to keep a lot of the money and give what's left to doctors to make people healthy. This isn't hard to understand or explain, but it means confronting the distortions and lies that the right will throw at you.

But instead of trying to do that, we get this ridiculously compromised plan that health insurance companies must love looking forward to, as the government will be subsidizing the costs the insurance companies will be imposing. And the countries with actual national healthcare systems must be laughing their collective asses off when Hillary has the temerity to utter her "universal healthcare" plan, or Barack proposes the same one but without the financial penalties.

You all know why the Democrats don't get behind it, and continuing to support them anyway won't incentivize them to change their tune.

So don't blame Nader or the Democrats that will be looking for a third party candidate this time around more than ever such as Cynthia McKinney; the Democratic Party has only themselves to blame for the problem it presents. Unlike the Repukes, the Democrapic side of the party has left its base, we have not left the old Democratic party.

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hillarious
Posted by: Diva_Universe on Feb 28, 2008 11:34 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Was an awesome comedy...really hilarious!!. However... YES WE CAN!! OBAMA 2008!! YES, HE CAN!

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SNL
Posted by: rickiey on Feb 29, 2008 8:00 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Nice to see them funny again.

It's horrible to see people taking that seriously. The "press take on Obama" is simply a reflection of the "people's take on Obama".

The fact of the matter is simple. The common man and common woman, have looked at the issues, and the proposed solutions, and they prefer Obama's. That is why Obama has the lead in delegates that come from "the common person".

Senator Clinton, on the other hand, has been a Washington insider for a couple decades, and one mean political machine. She was chosen to be the DNC nominee this year, before even the 04 election. THe Washington insiders had it all worked out, planned, and fine tuned.

It is the PEOPLE who happen to be throwing those plans out the window.

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it may be somewhat true but wasn't very funny
Posted by: oleosanxez on Mar 1, 2008 6:26 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
anyway, viewers now know what it's like to be a republican.

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