FEY/PALIN 2008: Now, before I start I should admit that I’ve got the standard nerd’s hots for Tina Fey, or I would, if I were thirty years younger. I think she’s the funniest woman writing since Veronica Geng died, and with Geng, if you didn’t live here in the northeastern part of this our Great Republic, a lot of her stuff would just go right by you. You don’t get that sort of disconnect with Fey. So I was really looking forward to the season premiere of SNL; from the first moment I saw Sarah Palin (my first reaction was that the GOP nominated Tina Fey’s older sister) I knew that I would have to watch the season opener. I just knew.

And it did not disappoint. The show’s opening was five minutes of the smartest comedy I’ve seen in a long time (the rest of the show was just so—so) and I laughed like nobody’s business. One of the smartest of the lines was that one where Amy Poehler’s faux Sen. Clinton states that diplomacy must be the basis of any successful foreign policy and Fey’s faux Palin says, “And I can see Russia from my house!” I loved that line, but now that a couple days have gone by, I can see how I might not think that line was so funny if I were a Georgian or a Kazakh or a Ukrainian. Those folks actually can see Russia from their houses and they don’t like what they see. It’s all a matter of perspective, I guess; obnoxious neighbors are always funny when you don't actually have to live next door to them.