Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a surprise/non-surprise (it was reported) appearance on Saturday Night Live last night, doing a brief Donald Trump imitation in a skit where she played a bartender — and even sang a little:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56gnAHcVP98She later gave this interview about her SNL appearance:
I need to add this note that I put on my Facebook page:
Am I getting something wrong here? I saw Donald Trump, Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz,. Carly Fiorina (SINGING yet) — all on non news entertainment shows. Now Hillary Clinton is going on SNL and a conservative writer dismisses it as her “trying to get people to like her.” So when Trump, Bush, Cruz, Fiorina all appear on those entertainment shows, it’s NOT the same thing? The utter HYPOCRISY of our blind partisanship in this country is SO TIRESEOME. . P.S. ALL candidates running for President benefit if they go on shows where they can reach audiences that aren’t traditional news so viewers can see them in settings where they’re not just making speeches. It goes back to Nixon saying “Sock it to ME?” on Laugh IN..
So for those who are going after Hillary Clinton, and not pretending that this kind of thing is now a (welcome ritual) in American politics. The r-e-a-l-i-t-y (which means little in today’s partisan and ideological hackery where those who attack thing attacking is absolutely brilliant analysis and the attack matters and the facts don’t) you can view this short clip:
Was Nixon trying to get people to like him? Duh. And there is nothing wrong that that. These appearances help politicians make voters take another look at them and encourage them to discard ingrained partisan, ideological and media type casting and their negative definition by seeing them in a different setting. In the end, voters may conclude the type casting and negative definition is correct.
But, no, Clinton is not the only one going on these shows to try to get people to like her. BRAVO to all politicians willing to step outside of traditional political media info oulets, or joke about themselves.
(Don’t expect that to stop the hackry. I won’t even bother reading a lot of websites today.)
UPDATE: I couldn’t help myself so my eyes disobeyed me and went to some websites. Here’s what Politoic suggested might have been in what was supposed to be a fun comedy sketch with a candidate:
The skit made no mention of the email scandal that has been damaging Clinton’s campaign so far. Nor did it deal with her main rival for the Democratic primary, Bernie Sanders, or Vice President Joe Biden’s potential entry into the race. Instead, the appearance handed Clinton an opportunity to be self-deprecating, winking at her own stiffness and acknowledging some of her own weaknesses in a manner that seemed to score her points with the audience.
P.S. This is what most these appearances by candidates on these shows have done for more than 50 years. SNL has had some great candidate appearances. You could say Laugh In made no mention of Nixon’s “tricky Dick” nickame or his angry “last press conference.” Why. Because IT WAS A COMEDY SKETCH. But apparently Clinton’s was a bit was supposed to be differend and deficient since it wasn’t packed with more politics than fun — or so suggests its article.
Clinton looked totally gassed to be there, and remarkably at ease. Her line readings were natural, especially for someone so often accused of being robotic. Even though a few slow cues threatened to take the air out of the sketch, it was the perfect “I’m in on the joke” showcase for a candidate who has notoriously struggled to launch the kind of charm offensive politicians like President Obama seem born to wage….
….Clinton-as-Val snuck in a few campaign positions and ribbed herself on her lethargy in arriving at them, specifically her stance on the Keystone Pipeline and gay marriage. A twice-repeated laugh-line, “I could’ve supported it sooner,” took on acute, touching meaning as delivered by McKinnon, who is openly gay…
…..And when it comes to humanizing the image and brand of Hillary Clinton, perhaps nothing is more humanizing than public humiliation—which is precisely what we all witnessed as Clinton attempted her own Donald Trump impression and then actually sang a song on live TV.
But it’s one exchange that summed up the transparent campaign goal Clinton set out to accomplish by appearing on SNL, and the one SNL was more than happy to help her achieve. “You’re easy to talk to, Val,” McKinnon’s Clinton said. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard that,” the newly sympathetic and relatable real thing replied.
It should come as no surprise that Clinton turned the SNL season premiere into a major campaign stop. And maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Lorne Michaels and the show were so game to trump for her.
Exactly how much of an effect the show can have on an election is a subject of much debate. Nonetheless, it’s hard to argue that Sarah Palin’s weekly roast on the show didn’t contribute to her ticket’s downfall. And in the recent documentary Live From New York, commemorating the show’s 40th anniversary, Will Ferrell wondered whether his characterization of George W. Bush as a man you’d want to get a beer with helped get him re-elected.
Longtime SNL writer-turned-politician Al Franken admitted that, though changing the world isn’t the show’s overt mission in election years, “every once in a while you make a good satirical point that actually elucidates something.” In his opinion, Darrell Hammond’s take on Al Gore was the show’s single most impactful political sketch. (Not that he’s happy about it.)
“When it’s only a few hundred votes, anything can tip the election,” he says. “So if you want to point to one SNL sketch that maybe tipped an election, it’s the lockbox.”
Suffice it to say Hillary Clinton is hoping that crooning “Lean On Me” arm in arm with Kate McKinnon could have a similar effect.
In the same Live From New York documentary, Lorne Michaels asserted that, “We’re nonpartisan and it’s important we stay nonpartisan.” Maybe that’s true, that the show is resisting taking the sides of any one political party. But it has a, by this point, long tradition of taking the side of at least one politician.
You can trace the show’s unabashed support of Hillary Clinton back to Jan Hooks’s brilliant portrayal in the ’90s of the then-First Lady as the one pulling her husband’s puppet strings. It was certainly obvious in the now iconic sketch with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin and Poehler as Clinton, the perfect political satire and one that hailed Clinton’s competency as passionately as it blasted Palin’s stupidity.
But perhaps the peak of all this was Fey’s sermon from the Weekend Update pulpit demanding atonement from those who sexistly conflated Clinton’s…demeanor with bitchiness. “Bitch is the new black,” indeed.
The bitch was back in Studio 8H Saturday night, and she was welcomed with open arms.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.