Live from the Washington Post, it's desperation night!
Now celebrating its 40th year on the air, the people at Saturday Night Live, SNL to the cognoscenti, are finally secure enough, mature enough, and known enough to realize that gosh darn it, people like them, and they can broaden their appeal to occasionally include some more knowledgeable folks without losing their younger, shallower, more liberal fans.
And so, last Saturday night, the show's classic introductory opening consisted of a mild satire of President Obama's executive order okaying illegal immigration.
Presented as a Schoolhouse Rock program on that history class/civics class staple lesson How A Bill Becomes A Law, an SNL cast member, costumed as a bill, dutifully explains his role. Too bothersome for President Obama, as the SNL President Obama shoves bill down the stairs. Down, down, down he bounces as Executive Order arrives to take over. Undaunted, Bill climbs back up the stairs, sincerely advising the president, "Look at the midterm elections." Shoving Bill down the stairs again, SNL's Obama declares, "Presidents issue executive orders all the time."
Quicker than Sarah Palin...er, excuse me, Tina Fey could chirp, "I can see Russia from my house," the Washington Post's Zachary Goldfarb whipped up a Fact Check on an SNL skit for the paper's Wonkblog. "This skit got a couple of things right, and a couple of things wrong."
You know, just like they did a Fact Check for the above-mentioned Tina Fey observation. Or their mocking depictions of all the presidents and certain unfavored politicians since the shows inception. And of course "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor." Jonathan Gruber. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are regularly Fact-Checked by Wonkblog, are they not? Not! – as another past SNL character might have said.
So why the fact-check – and the fact-check needs a few fact-checks – for an SNL skit?
Panic!
As Goldfarb concludes.
And so what matters most for Obama's action is public opinion, and what his successor does. The SNL skit, in that sense, doesn't help him.
Desperation!
But Washington Post reporters are now guaranteed access to President Barack Obama (D) anytime they want.
Isn't that what really matters?