Tuned In To See Sarah, And Nasty Clarence Thomas Joke Broke Out

October 19th, 2008 9:17 AM

I thought Sarah Palin did more than fine on Saturday Night Live [Noel's got the video here]. In particular, during her Weekend Update appearance Palin displayed a speaking poise and polish exceeding that of the other candidates on both tickets.  But Republicans who agree to appear on such shows put themselves in the lap of the liberal media gods.  And those lesser deities abused their power last night, running a nasty joke at Clarence Thomas's expense during Weekend Update shortly before Palin appeared.

The set-up was the fact that, in a dissenting opinion published this past week, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts employed the style of a hard-bitten detective novel.  That set up this . . .

View video here.

SETH MEYERS:  Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts this week wrote a legal decision that was a parody of a Mickey Spillane novel, using phrases such as "tough as a three-dollar steak," and "just another day at the office." Not to be outdone, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a decision as a letter to Penthouse.

Seventeen years almost to the day that Anita Hill appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee, NBC is still exploiting her unsubstantiated allegations to slur Clarence Thomas in the presence of the Republican vice-presidential candidate.  Nice MSM two-fer.

Sidenote:  In his memoir, My Grandfather's Son, Thomas tells the story of how Joe Biden went back on his promise to treat Thomas fairly during the Senate confirmation hearings [Via NRO.]

Note: As Jason Aslinger has observed, the Thomas "joke" wasn't the only shot at a conservative that SNL managed to work into Weekend Update.  It somehow also shoe-horned Dan Quayle's spelling of "potatoe" into the skit.  Rather than recycling that 16-year old incident, SNL might have used Joe Biden's recent description of "j-o-b-s" as a three-letter word.