As the campaign ends, John McCain popped up on Saturday Night Live last evening, trying to make fun of himself. Only it was hard to tell the difference, as he rolled his eyes, talked about "new" campaign strategies like the Double Maverick strategy and received the generally good-natured laughter of the audience (some of whom may vote for him, which is pretty funny in itself). Meanwhile, SNL gave him his payoff so to speak by doing a long over the top satire of Keith Olbermann, the very theatrical but consistently progressive MSNBC commentator whose humor most of the time is superior to SNL. Olbermann, I found out by channel surfing, was competing with SNL by doing a hilarious reality show number on the McCain Palin campaign, cutting and pasting from their speeches and interviews to make them and their supporters look like liars, phoneys, and comics doing a remake of the Producers, trying to profit from losing an election by running the worst campaign in memory.
As I switched up and back between Olbermann's Countdown show and the more expensive but less creative SNL, I came up with some of my own audience participation questions to end the McCain-Palin campaign. Here are the ten questions that I consider most fitting.
1. Senator McCain, will Senator Obama's tax proposal keep Joe the Plumber from joining the Hair Club For Men?
2. If you lose the election, will you launch an acting career, starring in a remake of the old James Garner series, Maverick?
3. Since Brett Maverick had a brother, Bart Maverick in that series, will Bill Ayers play your brother in the new series?
4. If Palin loses with you, will you help her become Commissioner of the National Hockey League?
5. If Palin doesn't want to become Commissioner of the NHL, will you help her in becoming a television evangelist?
6. Will you encourage her to have Reverend Jeremiah Wright as a regular guest on her show?
7. Will you support a constitutional amendment to let Arnold Schwarzenegger run for President in 2012 (an Equal Rights for Immigrants Amendment or ERIA)?
8. Will you support if the Arnold doesn't run, an ERIA to permit Rupe Murdoch to run for President in a special single candidate election on the proviso that he puts your Maverick program and Palin's Holy Roller review on on Fox and keeps it there, regardless of the ratings?
9. If you win, for the good of the country and the world, will you immediately demand a recount?
10. If you win, for your own good, will you immediately put all of your assets into Swiss Bank accounts?
Those are questions worthy of the McCain-Palin campaign, which will hopefully end in the septic tank of history this Wednesday, listening to a recorded phone message from "Joe the Plumber" informing them that he is no longer in business and cannot help them.
