David Paterson, presumably trying to lay a little bit low after that whole Caroline Kennedy/Kristen Gillebrand debacle, had no comment on Fred Armisen's latest send-up of his perceived deficiencies as both governor and sighted person. But boy, did the New York Times have something to say. Here's Clyde Haberman of the Times on the Paterson bits:
The shabby blind-man humor comes by way of “Saturday Night Live.”
Granted,
the show has a tradition of mocking politicians’ stumbles, figurative
and literal. This goes back to its earliest days in the mid-1970s, when
Chevy Chase built a career by sending up President Gerald R. Ford as a hopeless bumbler.
But
a lot of people felt that “S.N.L.” crossed a line of decency in
December when one of its people, Fred Armisen, made repeated fun of Mr.
Paterson’s blindness. As “Paterson,” he held a chart upside down,
rolled around aimlessly in a chair and wandered cluelessly into a
camera’s path. The level of humor might fairly be described as
sophomoric were that not an insult to sophomores...You’d think there might be a learning curve at Rockefeller Plaza.
Apparently not. Mr. Armisen was back as “Paterson” last Saturday night.
This time, he pulled out a huge pair of binoculars to read a piece of
paper. “Just kidding,” he said.Yuk, yuk, yuk. Among those failing to see the humor was Marcie Roth, executive director of the National Coalition for Disability Rights. For her, it reflected a “ridiculous, ongoing, permissible bigotry.”
Really? Mostly it seemed these bits were sending up Paterson's love of the one liner, and implying it came at the expense of actual governance. But yeah, there were certainly a number of (lack of) sight gags. Interesting in all this is the ongoing speculation that Lorne Michaels is only going after a local politician (although Governor of New York is no low-profile job) because of his friendship with Caroline Kennedy, as some sort of revenge through sketch comedy.
Still, as Gothamist notes, none of this at all compares to BBC host Jeremy Clarkson calling British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who is blind in one eye, a "one-eyed idiot." Now many in the UK are calling for Clarkson to be fired. Well, at least he should be reprimanded for not at least coming up with something halfway funny. That's just mean.
PREVIOUSLY:
Real-Life Blind Governor Fails To See Comedy In Bumbling "SNL" Parody Of Him
Why Isn't David Paterson Complaining Now?
