Saturday Night Live: Amusement or Agiprop?

Saturday Night Live just launched its 41st season on NBC with special guest First Lady Secretary of State Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY).  The appearance by the leading Democrat Presidential hopeful was a sympathetic portrayal of Mrs. Clinton, having the real politico playing a bar keep to a faux Hillary Clinton visiting a Republican bar.  This was a sharp contrast to the SNL satire in the spring which portrayed Hillary as robotic.  It is not surprising that the Not Ready For Prime Time writers would pen comedic softballs for a progressive politician like Hillary Clinton, but the obsequiousness for covering campaign soft spots (slow to support same sex marriage, need to be cool and youthful and the tough task of humanizing her) was egregious.

What was more irksome was a pretty amusing SNL fake ad for Ambilify, a pharmaceutical for politicians suffering from what would best be described as "Potomac Fever".  Such wanna be Presidential candidates have virtually no support but they still continue to campaign.



Perhaps the writers were appealing to Low Information Voters and Potomac Fever would be too Between the Beltways lingo or esoteric.  But slandering these quixotic campaigners as having dementia propels it from the realm of parody into propaganda.

Faux Pharamaceutical Ad on Saturay Night Live

WMAL radio host Chris Plante rightly pointed out that the Ambilify fake pharmaceutical only takes aim at Republicans.  There are a couple of Democrats running for President this cycle who have nearly naught support, namely former Senator and  Governor Lincoln Chafee (R-I-D-RI), former Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and former Governor Martin O'Malley (D-MD).  Strangely, none of those fledgling politicians were satirized as being candidates for Ambilify, even though all of them could have less support than the margin of error in most polls.

As a political junkie, it is fun to see campaigns spoofed on comedy shows.  Knowing the ways of the Lamestream Media, it is unsurprising to see the comedy slanted to the left.  But when a funny fake drug about delusional Presidential aspirants only ribs Republicans, it is not entertainment but agiprop.

Thomas Sowell has urged Americans to be prudent in choosing their news sources. But in an age of infotainment, low information voters often turn to comedy shows to get their fill of the world. Unfortunately, for the last decade youths have been turning to comedy shows, like the Daily Show or the old Colbert Report, to get their news instead satirizing current events. These smug news consumers think that they get they have a good bead on things but they do not realize that they are being played.