First, mainstream news media outlets take a Romney quote out of context – “I like to fire people” – to gin up manufactured outrage. That meme circulates for a few days, long enough to get on the radar of “Saturday Night Live” writers who can’t find anything funny about a president residing over a stagnant economy.

Why look for potential laughs there, right? It’s not as if sitting presidents haven’t translated into comedy gold for decades.

Next, “SNL” picks up the Romney meme and makes it the Jan. 14 show’s opening sketch. The bit has Romney (Jason Sudeikis) appearing at a Middle American diner and firing everything in site – including the bacon on the menu.

Ha ha.

The joke wouldn’t connect unless dishonest media outlets misused Romney’s actual quote to paint him as a cold, unfeeling bureaucrat who doesn’t blink when it comes time to lay people off.

It’s the kind of theme Obama will use, no doubt, during the presidential campaign. And “SNL” and other late-night hosts will be right there, of course, to keep hammering the message home, no charge.

Cast member Andy Samberg, sporting the now-signature Santorum sweater vest, shares how he plans to overtake former Gov. Mitt Romney and win the GOP presidential nomination.

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“I’m going to skip the slick TV ads and take my case directly to the people,” Santorum says, promising to visit every county across the nation in the process.

“Some of these counties are quite dangerous … San Francisco County, California is home to literally thousands of angry pillow biters and doughnut lovers  … ’nuff said.”

“If the lesbians don’t get me, the Mormon death squads probably will,” he says.

The opening sketch wrapped with the obligatory reference to the former Senator’s “Google problem.”

“So maybe one day long after I’m gone, my grandchildren can look me up on Google and find something, you know, something different than what’s there right now,” he says.

Last night, Baldwin found another cozy spot for his damage control effort – “Saturday Night Live.”

Baldwin, a frequent and hilarious guest on the sketch comedy show, appeared as the fictional captain of the flight he was booted off of on Dec. 6. The bit, part of the show’s Weekend Update segment, found the captain singing Baldwin’s praises and apologizing for the airline’s treatment of him.

All the while, a confused Seth Meyers, the Weekend Update anchor, breaks character to tell Baldwin this approach might not be the best way to make amends for his actions.

Unfortunately, their enthusiasm might have caused them to jump the gun. Since last Thursday’s GOP debate was devoid of A-list candidates, “Saturday Night Live” didn’t have any solid characters to parody. So rather than make the late night ensemble work, the writers just fictionalized a debate between the more famous undeclared candidates; using characters they will probably be able to recycle during the upcoming campaign.

It was like watching a focus group, each actor trying out catch phrases they hope to use over the next year and a half. They even had Keenan Thompson resurrect his Jimmy “Rents 2 Damn High” McMillan character (personally I would think they could have gotten the real Jimmy McMillan, at or below AFTRA rates, which would have had the added bonus of making the skit funny).

For even less of a reason, they decided to trot out Tina Fey, to perform her award-winning impression that she thought was tired three years ago. This makes no sense. Sarah Palin doesn’t even have a Presidential exploratory committee; at least Jimmy McMillan once suggested that he would run for President as a Republican. Back in 2009, CNN thought it was necessary to fact-check “Saturday Night Live” for an Obama skit, I wonder what those fact-checkers are doing today?

Much like jokes about airline food and phone booths, Tina Fey’s impression seems like it’s from another era. I was puzzled why they didn’t bring in Rich Little to do his Nixon impression. If it’s okay to add Republicans who aren’t even running for President, why limit yourself to the living?

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Remember the mid 70’s, during the first ever season of “SNL” when breakout star Chevy Chase did his bumbling Gerald Ford impersonation? One of the big, unspoken jokes of that routine was that Chase intentionally did absolutely nothing to either look or sound like Ford. There was really nothing more to those skits than watching Chevy Chase bumble around. Dan Akroyd might have sported a mustache while playing Jimmy Carter, but at least he got the rest right. In the meantime, Chase was doing the worst impersonation in the history of show business and bringing down the house (and maybe a president). Chase was criticized for being lazy but I thought it was genius, though it would be impossible for me to articulate why.

What’s sad about the Obama/O’Reilly routine above is that these guys don’t even seem to know they’re not trying. Obviously no one at “SNL” wants to land any kind of serious satirical blow on Obama (election year coming donchaknow) — so there’s no comedy there, but the guy playing O’Reilly is so sure that a simple amplification of “The Factor” host’s qualities will do the job for him that this long, laborious skit depends on only that and runs out of steam within seconds. I like O’Reilly, but I’m also willing to admit that, like most nationally known, larger-than-life personalities, he’s pretty ripe for satire. When it comes to hitting the comedic mark, those people are as hard to miss as the side of a barn and … ”SNL” missed the side of a barn.

I can only judge the state of “SNL” by the viral clips let loose every Sunday morning. Since John Belushi left, except for my precious DVD collections of the first five seasons, I’ve never seen an entire episode. But I’m assuming they viralize their best stuff, which can only mean that what we have here is an institution resting on its laurels.

More evidence below….

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You want to know why that clip is funny? Because “SNL” is actually going after a bona fide sacred cow. I mean, a real sacred cow, not a fake one like the Catholic Church. Further proof of that protected status comes from GLAAD itself:

The piece was a mock commercial for estrogen replacement therapy and featured men with facial hair wearing dresses, meant to represent transgender women. This segment cannot be defended as “just a joke” because there was no “joke” to speak of. The attempted comedy of the skit hinges solely on degrading the lives and experiences of transgender women. Holding people up for ridicule simply on the basis of their identity fuels a hurtful climate and puts people in danger, especially given how infrequently the media shines a fair and accurate light on the lives of transgender people. “The violence, discrimination and harassment that transgender Americans experience each and every day is no laughing matter,” said GLAAD President Jarrett Barrios. “Saturday Night Live is a touchstone of American comedy, but Saturday’s unfunny skit sends a destructive and dehumanizing message.”

Whatever. They have every right to fight back, I guess. Between this and that “electric cars are gay” joke, the entire non-heterosexual community must feel as under assault as Sarah Palin. Two jokes in one year. It’s a regular Hate-a-palooza out here.

What is silly, though, is the petition to demand an apology. As of this writing, 2,255 people have signed on. Not exactly the kind of numbers necessary to put a chill down the spine of NBC but most certainly the kind of numbers that likely prove that the people GLAAD claims to represent are better able to laugh at themselves than their joyless “spokespeople.”

I love our side and there’s really no lower form of life than someone on our side who undermines their own, so I say this to be constructive, not destructive. There are a lot of people on the Right who love Jon Stewart, people I respect, some of whom I know and like. And I agree that Stewart’s very good at what he does (which is why I take him seriously). But a conservative admiring the brilliance of Jon Stewart’s talent is like a boxer admiring the power of Mike Tyson’s punch as he’s beating you senseless. You have to fight back and in that respect, last night O’Reilly did an excellent job of threading a very difficult needle. Stewart is not easy to lay a glove on, but this was a clean hit. (You’ll be glad to know that I am now out of boxing metaphors).

Another point O’Reilly made that should be highlighted, is how the so-called “objective” or “legitimate” media too often takes what Stewart and Colbert do as some kind of gospel. Because Stewart is a “comedian,” the liberal media uses that as an excuse to blow up what he does on their air or online without bothering to fact-check, even when the stakes involve reputations. We’ve seen this before. Nobody watches “Saturday Night Live” but everyone saw Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin impression. With a smirk, and as though it didn’t matter, the left-wing media let Tina Fey do their dirty work on Palin with the endless looping of those SNL clips all in the name of “fun.” Well, it’s not fun, it’s an attempt to dehumanize someone into a national punchline and the media knew it.

An excellent example of this is Mediaite, a far-left site disguising themselves as “objective.” Like Stewart, they’re very good at what they do, but they are by design and on a daily basis aiding and abetting this sinister practice of cherry-picking videos that further the Leftist narrative in the hopes they’ll go viral. Again, the idea is to dehumanize the subject into a punchline. Why would a legitimate news site post this, or this, or especially this? There’s nothing of substance there. It’s about isolating and targeting a political opponent. At one point yesterday, there were no less than four stories on Mediate’s front page ridiculing Michelle Bachmann, none of them on the substance of her post-SOTU remarks, all of them meant to further the narrative that she’s dumb. One. Two. Three. Four.  

And did Mediaite question Stewart’s attack on Fox News and Bill O’Reilly. That’s a rhetorical question. It’s one thing for an openly political website to do this, our own BreitbartTV and our friends at NewsBusters are excellent examples, but like Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Politico, and the MSM, Mediaite thinks they can do more damage through duplicity. And so that I’m not accused of doing my own cherry-picking, I invite you to spend some time here and here, and come to your own conclusions.

There’s also something darkly twisted and pschologically disturbing about these relentless anti-substance attacks on Palin and Bachmann [update: don't forget Christine O'Donnell], and it’s not just Mediaite. As the Hollywood Reporter pointed out yesterday, you see it at MSNBC, as well. They’re all members of what I all the HeManAttractiveConservativeWomanHatersClub. There’s an anti-woman rage bubbling on the Left, and due to the fact that there’s a big asterisk next to the name’s Palin and Bachmann in any handbook of professional journalism, that bubbling is allowed to boil over without consequence. In a world where professional journalism exists, the guy who actually gave the State of the Union address would get the most press, no? To be fair and clear, I do not believe Colbert and Stewart are members of that club.

Most importantly, what we’re witnessing here is a preview of 2012. You can see how the Leftist media is going to use Jon Stewart and you can see how Jon Stewart is going to allow himself to be used. Same with Colbert and SNL. Because so-called “satirists” are held to a lower factual standard and the media is desperate to destroy their political opponents by any means necessary without appearing to get their hands dirty, what you have here is a marriage made in Alinsky Hell. 

Stewart and his dishonest media allies are ruthless and playing for keeps, and that’s no joke. O’Reilly did good work pushing back last night. Here’s hoping we see more of that from our side.

UPDATE: Someone made a comment that told me I might not have been as clear as intended. The HeManAttractiveConservativeWomanHatersClub is not “sexist.” I never used that word, never crossed my mind to. Women on the Left are just as energized to destroy these women on the right as Chris Matthews is. Something about smart, attractive, independent-minded conservative women enrages the Left. And whatever it is, it’s twisted and cruel.

They nearly threw their backs out.

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In SNL’s opening sketch, we see the truly talented cast return to the “Tina Fey Doctrine.” This Doctrine, responsible for SNL’s dark ages, gives priority to the given political agenda du jour, while resting “comedy” firmly on the backburner. SNL decided to open with its weakest sketch in recent memory, by attacking Fox News.

Major Failure ensued.

The talented Bobby Moynahan was set to impersonate Sean Hannity. Always a gamer, with a chubby, Belushi-like charm, I was sure he’d knock it out of the park. The pretty Nasim Pedrad was slated to do Michelle Malkin. Nasim is one of the strongest female cast members to have been brought to SNL in recent years, acting as a refreshing change of pace from Kirstin Wiig’s “I’m so repetitive and annoying that it’s funny!” schtick. This was going to be epic…

…And then something happened.  As the sketch began, the key players weren’t doing impressions at all. Like unenthusiastic teenagers on their last Halloween runs, they might as well have just showed up in street clothes with a drugstore mask. When it came time to do impersonations, they didn’t even give it an effort. Even more offensively, they weren’t even trying to be funny. Not a single, genuine belly laugh to be had.  And believe me, I’m no tough audience.  Give me a couple of beers and a whoopee cushion, and I am one entertained bumble.

The sketch did serve to perfectly encapsulate what is wrong with the entertainment industry. Conservatives are always willing to give the leftist establishment’s content a look and a chuckle when it’s warranted. It becomes a problem only when the political agenda is so repetitively blatant that it sucks out any fun to be had in the first place.

Even worse, later in the episode, Anderson Cooper made a guest appearance declaring his baby blues to be a “national treasure.”  No Mr. 360, four hundred thousand viewers on a good day and dead last in your timeslot does not a national treasure make.

It should be noted, that there was one funny component to the sketch, however. Bill Hader’s hilarious impression of the ragin’ Cajun himself, James Carville. How fitting it is that when parodying an ally on the left, SNL can once again focus on the funny.  With no pre-emptive agenda to push, Bill Hader simply used his James Carville impression as a vehicle to entertain, instead of a platform to attack.

A comedy show… being entertaining?

Now there’s an idea!

I went to Amazon.com and read the forward, afterword and figured if I selected the “surprise me” tab often enough and opened and closed the browser several time I might get to see the whole book for free. After an hour of being cheap and trying to scam a free read I saw a used copy for $14 and rationalized that this money was going to the reseller and not to Ms. Silverman, so I ordered the book.

I have a number of comedy pet peeves and one of them is the “fake funny quote” on a comic’s resume or promo material. The problem is that that has been done to death, and most of the time it isn’t really funny. Yet, there on the cover of a book written by a comedian who is reported to be on the leading edge of comedy are the quotes from her childhood “friends.” (At least I think that is what the joke is supposed to be.)  

Another comedy thing that annoys me is when at some point in their act a comic says something like, “Okay, this next thing really happened,” or “This is a true story.” The problem is that when you say that you break the illusion that everything you say is true. In “The Bedwetter” Ms. Silverman tells a story about losing her virginity to another older comic. A few pages later she has a series of e-mails between them where she and the comic share their recollections of the night in question and show that the story as reported is at least partly fabricated. I understand that she has done this for comic effect but why tell us? In the story as told, the comic in question comes off as an unfeeling jerk. Does she not want to hurt his feelings so she lets us know that he’s really an okay guy and it’s just a joke?  

The first seventy or eighty pages of “The Bedwetter” are a non-chronological recounting of her childhood and early career. From her bedwetting to her teen depression she recounts her ups and downs in somewhat surprisingly limited detail. One detail that Ms. Silverman does share is that when she was a teen she was taking up to 16 Xanax a day! I felt sorry that no one in her life had the common sense to say, “Man, that’s a lot of psychotropic drugs for a teenager! Maybe we should question that.”  

There is a short section on her dad, who she says hates rich folks, so maybe she is now on that list. Ms. Silverman also spends a lot of time apologizing.  She says she’s sorry for several of the events which brought her to wider public attention, her ridiculing of Paris Hilton going to jail and Brittany Spears “comeback” on MTV. She lets us know that she wrote both apology letters at the time.

Perhaps she’s worried they might not invite her to their parties now that Ms. Silverman is a bit of a celebrity herself. Of course there is no apology to the millions of non-celebrities she has offended with her “Jesus is Magic” show. Those peons can just go… in fact she spends a few pages deriding them and the fact that they would even express their outrage. The later part of the book deals with insider information about her show on Comedy Central. Since I wasn’t a fan the section held my interest a little less time than the current World Cup hoopla.

The problem with Ms. Silverman’s book isn’t that it’s bad. If it really sucked I would be gleefully slamming it. The problem is that most of the book is extremely ordinary. There were several parts I did find enjoyable and made me move Ms. Silverman up a few notches on my great comic rankings. First, was that at SNL, during a meeting, she stabbed Al Franken in the head with a sharp pencil! That’s funny and cool at the same time and she offered no apology to Mr. Franken. Secondly was that after being criticized for telling a great satirical joke that included the word “chink” she got a lot of guff from a guy at an Asian anti-defamation group. After trying to explain the joke and apologizing to the guy, he would not be placated. Frustrated, she called him a douchebag on national television! That makes me think there may be hope for Ms. Silverman.

Now that that’s over would anyone like to buy a copy of “The Bedwetter?”

A typical “MacGruber” “SNL” sketch looks like this: MacGruber is tasked with disarming a time bomb within 30 seconds or so, he gets distracted by less urgent matters which causes him to fail in his mission, and the bomb explodes killing everyone. It’s a spoof of the show “MacGyver,” where the lead character was often an expert at getting out of tough situations and escaping from death traps set out for him. (For the record, if there is one thing that “MacGruber” should point to, it’s the fact that the show “MacGyver,” and not this limp satire of it, merits its own motion picture.)

The film “MacGruber” focuses on MacGruber (Will Forte), a military expert, who is re-enlisted by the military to seek vengeance against Dieter Von Cunth (played by Val Kilmer), the man who killed his wife on their wedding day. MacGruber is known as a hero who many believed had died years before. Although he wants to remain in his new life, MacGruber leaves his retirement and brings a team together on a mission against Cunth, a team that he accidentally kills minutes after they are introduced.  They are killed because MacGruber, this supposed military hero, is a complete idiot. From there, MacGruber starts a new team with Vicki St. Elmo (Kristen Wiig), another former military teammate of his, and Dixon Piper (Ryan Phillippe), a young admirer of MacGruber’s.

While the “SNL” Macgruber sketches can be funny on occasion, this entire movie is utterly dependent on crude, classless, and tasteless humor. For instance, one of MacGruber’s tricks is to distract bad guys by walking around naked with a celery stick behind his butt. Also, when MacGruber is taken off the case against Cunth, he lets Piper know that he will do anything to get his job back, including sleeping with Piper or having sex with different objects in the room.

Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

But the movie stretches beyond typical gross-out jokes. MacGruber also tells the story about how he told his girlfriend to have an abortion because he did not want another person’s child in his life. This story is played for laughs but does not receive any.

Admittedly, there were a few funny bits in the film.  Wiig is pleasant as Vicki St. Elmo and makes the most of her limited material. She is especially funny in a scene where she is forced to dress up as MacGruber and act like him in a coffee shop while the real MacGruber is being attacked. Watching her in an inane film like this one and enjoying her performance nonetheless speaks to her comedic talents. The rest of the cast, shall we say, disappoints.

It’s also a let down a strong cast of named names is wasted on such shoddy material. Kristen Wiig has impressed on “Saturday Night Live” and in a small role in “Ghost Town,” Ryan Phillippe has been effective in films like “Cruel Intentions,” “Crash,” and “Igby Goes Down,” just to name a few, and Val Kilmer is also much better than “MacGruber” allows him to be.

Ultimately, “MacGruber” is a failure. This cast deserved better, this “SNL” sketch deserved better, and the viewers deserved better.