Comedians show more spine than Dems on Lieberman

Paul Schmelzer — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:22:44 +0000

The Democrats’ response to Sen. Joe Lieberman’s vigorous campaigning for John McCain, which included the former Democrat taking to CNN to endorse the GOP’s talking point that “Hamas endorsed Obama”: He got to keep his chairmanship and was allowed to remain part of the Democratic Senatorial Caucus. Since his party won’t deal with Leiberman harshly, comedians are picking up the slack. This weekend, “Saturday Night Live” and NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” laid into the Connecticut senator — one using a much-bleeped-out “Rahm Emmanuel” (who says if he had his way, Lieberman wouldn’t merely be stripped of his role as chair of the Homeland Security Committee, but would be stripped naked and made to walk his “McCain-loving ass back to Connecticut, you [bleeping] turncoat”); the other likened Lieberman to Gollum, the not-to-be-trusted troll-like thing of “The Lord of the Rings” movies.

On NPR’s “Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me!,” Lieberman was featured in a call-in quiz in which Oakdale resident Alissa Banff (unsure on the spelling; no transcript exists) had to name the news story from the past week that matched the song, “Let’s Kiss and Make Up.” Once she guessed the correct answer, host Peter Sagal said (taking oodles of creative license):

Lieberman did a lot of things this year to annoy Democrats, but he did one very smart thing: He annoyed Democrats rather than anyone who might do something about it.

Leiberman campaigned enthusiastically for John McCain, of course. He implied Barack Obama was an unpatriotic Marxist and he personally set fire to the Democratic National Committee offices and he wrote and performed the YouTube hit song, “The Democrats are a Bunch of Terrorist-Loving Weenies.” But, the Senate Democrats were feeling magnanimous. They welcomed Lieberman back and they let him keep his prized committee chairmanship. Lieberman reacted by actually slapping Harry Reid and then saying, “You still forgive me?” And Reid said, “Sure,” and Leiberman walked behind him and gave him a wedgie and said, “How ’bout now?”

WWDTM regular Adam Felber responded by saying Leiberman has “lost all credulity,” yet Democrats keep giving him second and third chances. He then likened him to Gollum, the character from the film adaptations made of J.R.R. Tolkien’s novels: “And he’s actually started looking like him, too!”

Listen here (starts at 4:33).

In a web-only clip, Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg, playing a hot-tempered Rahm Emmanuel, Barack Obama’s selection for chief of staff, brought up Lieberman:

Minnesota Independent » Gollum

Comedians show more spine than Dems on Lieberman