how does an SNL skit get pulled by NBC and youtube?

Satire is supposed to be messy. It’s supposed to be biting and even nasty at times.

It can be scattershot and long-winded (as in this SNL skit). It can also provide a wonky dose of reality and insight into our smug, media massaged world of instant analysis and expert telepundits.  By doing so, it can occasionally reveal some kernel of truth. That’s at least what “I” think it’s supposed to do.

Way back on October 4th, 2008 Saturday Night Live’s lengthy intro skit spoofed ’The Big 3′ auto bailout hearings going on in Washington D.C.

Apparently they may’ve stepped on some toes. Both NBC and YouTube pulled the video. NBC has for sometime now, actually been in the habit of posting viral videos on YouTube in addition to hosting them at their own Saturday Night Live website (part of  NBC/General Electric’s website). Why oh why wouldn’t they want this one making the rounds?

Perhaps they were applying a version of President Lyndon Johnson’s adomonition to Prime Miniter Lester Pearson: “You don’t piss on your neighbor’s rug!”

Way back in that fall of 2008, 80% of respondents at the National Small Businesss Association (NSBA) said “no” to an auto manufacturer bailout. Experts then were saying that without a convincing, solid plan on the part of ‘The Big 3′, the notion of the US Congress agreeing to a bailout seemed highly unlikely.

Flash forward to today and the eve of auto bailout part deux. Another look at this banned video that YouTube and NBC don’t want you to see might be in order. Especially now at how prescient the idiocy of it all seems. Yes, the plan seems to be working out just fine.

- Steve Steinbach

done