The One that Olbermann Got Wrong

Keith Olbermann and Eugene Robinson are chatting about a recent SNL skit, and Olbermann is really over the top on this one. He actually thinks Sen. Clinton's campaign should be upset over a skit last Saturday night that showed in incompetent Obama calling Clinton for help? The conversation demonstrates just how skewed Olbermann's thinking has become.

SNL has featured a series of skits that focus on the media bias against Sen. Clinton. One featured a debate that had one of the moderators asking if the Obama character would like a pillow. Sen. Clinton even poked fun at herself in an appearance during a subsequent show.

While I certainly can't speak for the Senator, I don't see why she would think the latest sketch wasn't funny, or that -- as Olbermann suggested -- the show was turning on her. These guys really do need to get a grip!

The following is an unofficial transcript from the show:

Olbermann asks: "Sen Clinton has pointed to SNL parody earlier in the season as proof of media bias against her ... are we safe in assuming she is not going to do that this time? Or is she going to use this as an example of media bias against her?"

Eugene Robinson responds: "I think we're really safe in assuming that she's just going to forget this ever aired. And we're safe in assuming she's not going to wear that getup on the campaign trail any time soon."

Olbermann: "Is this not, as I ask rhetorically early in the show, a problem with working the refs, whether it's in sports or it's in politics. The refs may give you the immediate make up call, but eventually they start scrutinizing you much more than you thought they were originally?"

Robinson: "Yeah, I mean you start whining to the refs and they pay a lot of attention to you. They resent that on some level. I mean, you know, Lorne Michaels hasn't shared with me his thinking about the sketch, but my impression is that they've probably heard a lot about the last two weeks and all the play that Hillary Clinton got, so this is kind of a 'make up' make up call I think."

Olbermann: The relevance of any of these ... I mean, there have been a lot of presidential elections during the time Saturday Night Live has been on the air. They influenced to some degree 1976, clearly with Chevy Chase's impression of Gerald Ford. Whether or not they had that kind of impact in 2000 and the lock box and everything else with Al Gore is a little bit more debatable. But in this case, is it not fair to say that that argument that Hillary Clinton was getting short changed by the media really did resonate because of that Saturday Night Live sketch. Is that how tight this election is, we're now going to have to count votes created by comedy sketches on NBC on Saturday nights?"

Robinson: "We might have to, I mean you know timing is everything -- and I think that sketch coming just when it did. When she was trying to make that point when Hillary Clinton supporters had just kind of internalized, and begun to give voice to the idea she wasn't getting fair treatment, you know, then a funny Saturday Night Live sketch just reinforces that. A brilliant Saturday Night Live sketch can, I think, have some modest influence on an election. This, this past weekend was not a brilliant Saturday Night Live sketch. I didn't think it was all that funny, but it had it's moments. But it wasn't on anybody's list of I think the top 500 Saturday Night Live sketches."

Olbermann: "Is it a little odd, is it instructional do you suppose to political candidates, that if you are going to go into this shark tank that is satirical humor, and the sharks are all nice to you for a little while, that eventually the sharks are going to try and take a bite out of you, is that what we saw here?"

Robinson: "Absolutely, that is the shark's job. [laughter] The job of the writes at Saturday Night Live is to take bites out of everybody. And if you've been nice to Hillary Clinton for a couple of weeks then of course you are going to come back and you are going to portray her, you know, in that getup she was wearing to bed -- and as deceptive and misleading and you name it. I think they still haven't quite got the Obama impression right, though. They need to, need to, you know, Fred Armisen needs to keep working on that."

Olbermann: "Given the challenge of it I think he's doing okay, but there's room to grow. Is that the way they say it in entertainment?"

Robinson: "There's room to grow. And there's a high standard, I mean Darrell Hammond's Jesse Jackson, for example, is the gold standard for cross-racial impressions, and I think Armisen has a way to go."

Olbermann: "It's a good effort, and he's a talented guy, and we'll stop doing the TV reviews now.

And get back to the bad political analysis! ha It seems clear to me that Olbermann, and Robinson, are concerned about the SNL factor in this election season. It's too bad the writers were on strike for so long -- this might be an entirely different contest had they been around earlier to poke fun at Obama's empty suit.