Fred Armisen is a decent comedian and I like some of his stuff on SNL, but he sucks at Obama impersonation. They need to bring in someone who does Obama better.
i think ideally he wanted the former, but in this climate it is not feasible. he is playing a clintonian game of pandering to the middle (which probably doesnt exist anymore), but his opponents will never support him anyway and his base is becoming increasingly disenchanted. you try to please everyone and you end up pleasing no one. the democrats truly are spineless though - they could push through their agenda w/out bipartisan support if they had the stones to do so. many obama supporters i talk to speak of how the rhetoric and 'tone' is different. they talk about how 'thoughtful' obama is and how they 'feel' about him. but as far as concrete, real-world, tangible change obama has been a huge failure and many who supported him are starting to see that. i think when he was running he gave the impression that he would roll back many of the unconstitutional, illegal and immoral policies of the previous administration, but in the most important cases, he has codified or even expanded them. not only continuing, but expanding bush's illegal wiretapping program. allowing evidence gained under torture to be upheld in a court of law upholding bush-era government secrecy - refusing to release millions of bush-era emails (you bush supporters should be thanking him for that btw) not closing gitmo not rescinding the patriot act not investigating the previous administration's authorization of torture (you bush supporters should be thanking him for that btw) - keeps saying 'i want to look forward, not back' - the two are not mutually exclusive and i would argue they are intertwined - that whole 'history repeats itself' thing. that is not the 'change' that many thought he was talking about. i think if you asked obama supporters before the election if obama would do all these things they would have said 'no'. it makes sense that many are now having buyers remorse. and obama flat out lied wrt many of his campaign promises he said he would have nobody w/ questionable ethics issues in his administration and then his treasury secretary ends up being a tax cheat (as well as one of the primary persons responsible for the first round of bail-outs that happened under bush). he said he would have no lobbyists in his administration and he lied about that. said he would end 'dont ask dont tell'. for the record, i did not vote for obama (or mccain).
There may have been some of that going on, but according to recent polling, the "disenchant[ment]" is reversing some. http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2009/10/obama-inches-up-in-ap-poll.html Congress’ approval ratings may be headed south, but President Obama’s have spiked upwards for the first time in the Associated Press poll. The AP/GfK survey out today finds Obama’s approval rating at 56%, compared to 50% last month. He had been sliding steadily in the survey since his inauguration. The uptick is driven by an improvement in how people feel the President is handling the economy and his health care reforms. Fifty percent of voters now say they like his economic efforts, up six points from last month. And they narrowly approve of the health reform push, 48% to 47%, representing another healthy jump. About the only not-good news in the survey for Obama was on Afghanistan, where approval held steady at 46%, and 57% of Americans oppose the war. Half oppose sending more troops. A Quinnipiac University survey out today finds just 38% are willing to send more troops, and approval of the Obama’s handling of the war is just 42%, compared to 40% disapproval. Still, Quinnipiac finds that by a 52% to 37% margin, the country thinks it is “doing the right thing by fighting the war.” “The American people are deeply conflicted about the war in Afghanistan. Two-thirds of voters can tell you that the war is related to the 9/11 attacks and see the current effort there as worthwhile to prevent a re-occurrence,” said Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown. “But they don’t want a prolonged military commitment and there is obvious nervousness about requests from the military to send more troops to Afghanistan.”
Who did you vote for? Did you abstain from voting? Also, thanks for the interesting and well thought out reply. A lot of those specifics you noted were things that I wasn't fully aware of, and yes, it is pretty disturbing that Obama's admin has capitulated on so many issues we voted for him to stand up against. My father (a stalwart conservative, but NOT, he insists, a republican) said this would happen and I assumed he was just talking his usual rhetoric, but now it seems he was right (well, partly). So what the hell do we do to get the president to start representing our interests and the reasons we voted for him again? Are we trapped in as usless a position as we were with the last one (God, I hope not)?
That's why in my post, I said 2 of the 3 of you were lying. You were the one I actually believed. The other two aren't even defending themselves so I have a hunch I'm correct.
there are other candidates on the ballot besides ones w/ R's and D's infront of their name. i voted for the libertarian candidate - its a wasted vote, i know, but it was cast in protest more against the current 2 party system than for bob barr. imo, both parties are bought and paid for by the same corporate interests - our elected officals, for the most part, are nothing more than political prostitutes. until the majority of americans realize this and change our voting habits than i dont see any real 'change' coming for us. i vote for whomever the 3rd party candidate is. if there is only a republican or democrat i will lean to the democrat, only b/c i have been so thoroughly disgusted w/ the way the republican party has conducted itself over the last 10 years or so. i honestly cant see myself ever voting for another republican as long as i live.
I actually think he does a good job. Entertaining. Now, he's no Ferrell, or that dude who did Clinton....but he's been pretty funny so far.
Two things SNL wasn't made for: celebrity impressions, or, aside from Murphy and Morgan, talented, long-term black cast members.
I almost cringed at you referring to Phil Hartman as "that dude," but then I realized you're probably talking about Darrell Hammond.
I believe Tim Meadows is the longest tenured SNL cast member in its history. (And I for one thought he was talented and deserved more airtime.)
