The opening skit on Saturday Night Live was a long monologue by someone doing a "Bush bit." He went into the whole story about how it had been found out that he had indeed been warned of the levee breech in advance. So the AP story may have been corrected and the lie admitted to, but there will be no punishment for the perpetrators of the story and for the SNL crowd, more fodder for the "Bush lied people died" line.
 
One of the biggest obstacles to getting people to open their minds about the war on Terror, Iraq, the Patriot act, Islamic extremism, etc. is a kind of social conformity among liberals.  For a large percentage of young people, speaking up in favor of the war is like wearing the wrong style of clothes or cutting your hair the wrong way.

You don't consider the reasons for supporting the war because if you agreed with them you would be somewhat marginalized, if not ostracized outright. That is why the SNL parody is so damaging. The lies about Katrina and Bush are embarassing to the media only to the small extent that bloggers have pointed them out. They may or may not feel exposed. But if they are not fired and the lies become the truth in the minds of their readers and then spread by word of mouth, what have they lost?

Readers of Powerline will know that the story was put together by a Sixty Minutes II producer and a Nation Magazine contributor and that it was stupid and dishonest. But for the casual watcher of Saturday Night Live it will become received wisdom.
 
Jon Cohen   3 06 06