Predictably joining the media attacks on Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), NBC's "Saturday Night Live" began its most recent installment mocking her response to the President's State of the Union address last Tuesday.
Actress Kristen Wiig playing the Congresswoman explained that as a result of technical difficulties in her first attempt, CNN gave her a second try at it. What followed was gaffe after gaffe in another segment by SNL designed to totally trash a conservative woman (video follows with transcript and commentary):
ANNOUNCER: This is CNN. Tonight, a CNN special event. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s response to the President's State of the Union address - the second attempt.
[Laughter]
[Cheers and applause]
KRISTEN WIIG AS REP. MICHELE BACHMANN, (R-MINN.): Good evening. I'm Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota’s sixth district. Four nights ago on behalf of the Republican Party and the Tea Party, I delivered a response to President Obama’s State of the Union address. Unfortunately, that response was marred by some technical difficulties, and it seems that its core message was not properly conveyed. Accordingly I have asked for this time tonight in order to try again. Because, you see, the issues are simply too important and the stakes for our nation too high to do otherwise. So here goes.
[Turns stage right facing away from the camera]
[Laughter]
Two years ago when Barack Obama became president, our nation's unemployment rate was already 7.8%, and our national debt an astonishing $10.6 trillion. The economy was headed for disaster as you can see from this chart.
[Chart facing stage right, totally unreadable]
[Laughter]
Not a pretty picture, is it? Yet, instead of addressing our economic problems, this president's policies have made them worse, as this next chart clearly shows.
[Chart facing upstage left, totally unreadable]
[Laughter]
That's right. Under our current president we've gone from this [first unreadable chart] to this [second unreadable chart].
[Laughter]
But it doesn't have to be this way. By simply reducing spending and returning to the core governing principles of our Founding Fathers, we can have an economy that looks like this.
[Upside down chart]
[Laughter]
[She’s then directed to look into the camera. She does briefly, and then turns stage left away from camera again]
But let's be honest, before any of this can happen, we must first address the massive growth in entitlements, especially Social Security. I'm going to show you another chart of the projected growth of revenues into the Social Security trust fund.
[Chart with no figures on it]
[Laughter]
It’s a little hard to see because I drew the line in white. Now, here is the same graph adding projected Social Security expenditures, also in white.
[Chart with no figures on it]
[Laughter]
Sorry, that's not very clear. Should we show that last graph in black? Do we have that?
[Graph is totally black with no figures on it]
[Laughter]
Okay. That's a little better I think. Maybe not. The point is the current situation is unsustainable. Consider this chart which shows the amount of federal spending devoted just to interest on the national debt.
[Chart of completely smudged, illegible figures]
[Laughter]
This is the one I dropped in the snow. That's a shame. That was important. But the point is the American people don't need graphs or charts to tell us what we already know. Our country is headed in the wrong direction and we all remember what this president promised us just one year ago at his first State of the Union.
[Video of woman with horse]
Alright. Obviously, that's, that’s not President Obama. No, I know it's on this tape. I just don't know where. I don't have time to find it now. So let me just conclude by saying, I realize how much the American people are sacrificing during these troubled economic times. We Republicans get it. And we want you to know we're doing some belt-tightening of our own. For example, this presentation you just saw was done on a reduced budget. I'm not kidding. We didn't even hire a professional director. Seriously. Or a trained graphic designer. And here is something else, believe it or not, my makeup was done by a child.
[Laughter]
As God is my witness, she's 5 years old. So thank you for your attention.
[Something crashes off screen]
May God bless America, and live from New York, it's Saturday Night!
In reality, if the folks at SNL had done their homework, they would have known that the real gaffe Tuesday night was made by CNN. As Breitbart reported hours before this was aired:
Our sources tell us that CNN had originally agreed to use the live feed set up by Tea Party Express, which had a teleprompter running on the lens in which Rep. Bachmann was delivering her speech. But, when Rep. Bachmann left the camera set-up and sat in the House chamber to hear Pres. Obama's speech, CNN set up a camera of their own, just off to the side of the main, tele-prompter/camera. Thus, when CNN provided their network feed it ended up skewed and off-kilter.
Here's what the real broadcast looked like Tuesday night:
As such, SNL could have just as easily made this sketch about the hapless professionalism of CNN for not using the Tea Party Express feed instead opting to use its own camera in a fashion that would guarantee the speaker wasn't looking into it.
The writers could have then had a field day mocking other such gaffes by the self-described most trusted name in news. That would have been a hoot, and quite contrary to how the rest of the media reported this incident.
In fact, if SNL really wanted to be original, it could have trashed all the media outlets and members that blamed this on Bachmann instead of CNN. Now that really would have been something to behold.
Alas, instead, NBC predictably piled on the conservative Congresswoman the media love to defame.
Just how predictable was it?
Well, a Twitter follower of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann sent a message to his hero Tuesday evening saying, "@KeithOlbermann Tonight's big winner from the Bachmann response debacle? - SNL's Kristen Wiig."
When people enamored with the former "Countdown" host can predict SNL's take on an event, and NBC unknowingly goes along with it, that has to be classified as too sophomoric for America's premier television comedy show.
Unfortunately, having impacted the 2008 elections with Tina Fey's impersonations of Sarah Palin while similarly trashing Delaware's Christine O'Donnell during the last election cycle, SNL made it quite clear with this opening segment that it's going to do its darnedist to trash conservatives for the next two years regardless of how predictable the sketch is.
The heads of Comcast must be so proud of their purchase.
