I just saw Sarah Palin in the Saturday Night Live opener.
Palin's skit revolved around the indistinguishability of her and Tina Fey's impression of her. The highpoint was a bit in which Alec Baldwin - Fey's co-star on 30 Rock - mistakes Palin for Fey.
And Palin was excellent. And that's the problem.
Sarah Palin was able to play herself so well on SNL - so well and indistinguishable from Tina Fey - because Sarah Palin is, essentially, a comedienne, a joke.
I mean this, seriously. Palin knows how deliver lines and postures and poses. Whether she is intentionally funny, or just is that way, doesn't matter. Her candidacy and her performance is a joke - on all of America.
Do we really want a person with her shtick - a person whose whole program really has no more depth than Tina Fey's shtick - as our Vice President?
Tina Fey deserves our applause, because her routine as Sarah Palin is a performance by someone who is not running for such high office.
And Sarah Palin deserves what? Unfortunately, not our laughter, but our grave concern.
I'll post a video of the routine here, or a link to it, as soon as it's available.
(Palin also was game for pretty funny Weekend Live skit, later on the show.)