Update: 'Saturday Night Live' says bailout skit 'didn't meet our standards'

Update: A "Saturday Night Live" skit that skewered President Bush, Democrats, homebuyers and subprime lenders for their roles in the mortgage meltdown was removed from the program's website because it "didn't meet out standards," a spokesman for the show said Tuesday. An edited version of the skit will be re-posted online soon, the spokesman said.

The skit, a parody of a C-SPAN news conference, ridiculed subprime borrowers, housing speculators and Herb and Marion Sandler, the real-life couple who built Golden West Financial into a subprime lending powerhouse and sold it to Wachovia before the subprime collapse. At one point in the skit, the Herb Sandler character says he made $24 billion off the subprime boom. Graphics then appear labeling the Sandlers as "People who should be shot."

"Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn't meet our standards," a spokesman for the program said in an e-mail message today. "We took it down and made some minor changes, and it will be back online soon."

Conservative blogger Michele Malkin, who called the skit "hilarious, dead-on, and surprisingly honest," reports that the Sandlers, prominent donors to liberal causes, were "seething over the skit" before it was removed from the "SNL" website.

The blog Hot Air is also chasing the disappearing video, and readers on that blog found the video last night on You Tube -- although by Tuesday morning the You Tube video had been removed "due to a copywright claim by NBC Universal." The video was still available, however, on the site snlbailout.com, which also links to media coverage of the skit and its disappearance.

On the message board at the "Saturday Night Live" website, commenters were accusing the program of self-censorship for removing the video. "Wow -- I'm genuinely scared by your censorship of the CSPAN bailout video," wrote commenter Dan. He added, "Are you really that evil?"

Another commenter on the show's website, Jack H, wrote, "If this skit is being censored for political purposes, that is truly sad.   My friends said there was more truth in the skit than a Democratic press conference regarding the matter.  Who was offended and threatened SNL/NBC???   This is worse than BANNING BOOKS."

My original post about the SNL skit appears below, unedited, with links that no longer work.

===

From time to time over the last 30 years or so, "Saturday Night Live" has done some pretty good political analysis wrapped in sketch humor. This weekend was one of those times. If you have seven minutes, watch this weekend's SNL take on the bailout. It starts to get good about halfway through.

Two cents: In addition to being pretty funny, the skit makes two strong political points that are frustratingly absent in much of the bailout coverage. First, the blame game: Both political parties have mortgage mud and housing bubble goo all over them. Yes, Republicans tried to throw a rope around Fannie Mae, and Democrats stopped them. Well, some Democrats wanted to stop predatory lending, but couldn't get much Republican help. But that argument misses the larger point: Both parties were happy with "financial innovation" on Wall Street and expanded levels of homeownership. Both parties worshiped at the altar of Alan Greenspan, never questioning the big-picture policies (low interest rates, crazy mortgage loans, unregulated credit markets) that got us here.

The second political point, equally obvious and equally missing from most recent coverage, is that the current crisis has its roots in the housing bubble. And the housing bubble drew on willing participation from millions of Americans who wanted more house than they could afford and in many cases tried to play the housing market for profit. It's all in the skit.

--Peter Viles

Your thoughts? Comments? E-mail story tips to Peter Viles.

Comments

[campechano]

Peter,
Take a look at this note from the NYTIMES it's pretty awesome and you might want to share it with the rest of the folks...thanks...

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/07/why-we-should-let-housing-prices-keep-falling/#comment-1637

[The Original RZ]

Digital Journal has an article about it here: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/260850

I think perhaps the problem is that SNL used the caption "people who should be shot" while impersonating the Sandlers. If that's the case, they should have just covered that caption up or removed it. Maybe the Sandlers (or even Soros) have threatened to sue NBC.

[Chris Y]

Just a few facts:

During the Clinton administration the laws regulating commerical and personal banks were changed to allow one bank to deal in both mortagages/checking accounts/saving account to also allow them to deal with securities. Before this change you had a strong seperation of these functions.

In 1999 A democratic congress and president passed a law forcing Fannie and Freddie Mac to loosen requirements on home loans. This created the "sub prime" market.

In 2002 McCain and other congressional leaders (Joe Leberman amounst them as well) tried to regulate the bond markets by forcing Freddie and Fannie to keep a higher percentage of cash on hand to cover sub prime mortgages. This legislation was blocked by a Democratic congress (mentioned in skit by Bush).

In 2006 similar legislation was also blocked.

In 2005 Barrack Obama and the lawfirm he works for sued several Illinois banks for not offering enough sub prime loans. The response to the suit was predatory lending practices to meet the requirements set forth in the lawsuit in terms of sub prime number of loans. They actually sued a bank for not lending money to people they thought did not qualify, and won. SCARY!

One final fact: Law of supply and demand
If suddenly more people "qualify" for home loans, then buyers suddenly outnumber sellers. This creates an increase in costs as the market tries to reach equillibrium. The housing "bubble" is nothing more than macro economics. More buyers with a fixed inventory of homes leads to scarcity based appreciation.

Do not blame Wallstreet for this. They wrongly assumed that the bond markets were being managed with the risks accounted for. Since the bond markets are in theory government backed this should be as safe as treasury bills. Since it was not, this turned out to be a fiasco.

Long story short, don't lend money to people who cannot pay it back. If you do, keep enough money to cover the bad loans. If you don't and you strip away the segregation of residential and commercial banking, you put our whole economy at risk.

[TakeFive]

They said if Bush was elected there would be oppressive censorship.

Free the SNL video!

Seriously though, the video went very easy on the Democrats, especially Barney Frank.

[Bailout Jerk]

You can find the video here http://www.snlbailout.com

[The Original RZ]

campechano, thanks for sharing that link.

[TakeFive]

Temporarily back up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYyGD--Skcg&eurl=http://michellemalkin.com/

[MyLessThanPrimeBeef]

Chris, I think we should be more generous and include everyone - Clinton, Obama, Wall Street, the rating agencies, borrowers, flippers, Republicans and Democrats.

And we must stop telling others to change when we are the ones who should change.

Also, we should ask Goldman Sachs this: 'When you are in trouble, you want American taxpayers to bail out you. What happened to your "global efficient allocation of capital" mantra, like, "if it's cheaper for Verizon to set up call centers in Pakistan, we will fund their expansion there?" And American workers? What about American workers?'

So now, who you are crawling to to bail you out, Goldman?

That's right, the American workers you jettisoned.

Why don't you ask other governments to bail out? This seems to be quite provincial and barbaric to rely on one's own nation.

[The Original RZ]

And those standards for SNL are???

This is just an excuse. If it was for simple editing, they would have posted something explaining it would be back, or at the very least they would have not removed the comments from their site asking what happened. Something smells fishy in the state of SNL...

[Brian]

I'm confused.

SNL "joked" about incest in the Palin family, but joking about Soros and Sandlers does not "meet their standards?" What standards do they have?

[Good grief]

Wow, that was funny! I just cannot believe how well informed and educated the SNL writers are on the current economic crisis.

Peter, are you now an SNL writer?

[dot]

I saw the show and loved the skit. The SNL of old is back in grand form. What a pleasant surprise. Censorship is for losers though...

[E]

We will have to see what the changes are.

I'm guessing that the only thing that "doesn't meet their standards" was the caption below the Sandlers that said..."People that should be shot".

That was pretty uncool.

Now if it said "People that should be tarred & feathered and then thrown in prison"....that should be OK.

[LilyC]

Interesting that SNL FINALLY does a political sketch that points blame at all the guilty parties: Dems, Reps, lenders, and homeowners and it gets pulled. If it had just aimed it's guns at Republicans, I'm certain it would still be available.

[pete_oc]

This is to be expected

Privately-held Federal Reserve and the Wall Street have taken over the country through bloodless coup

There is million ways now for them to control everything without ever ordering anybody anything

There goes Amerika

[Malkin? Oh man.]

I never thought I would have any common ground with a neo conservative turd like Malkin. She wrote an entire book in defense of stripping Japanese Americans of their civil liberties during WWII for crying out loud...ugh..I feel dirty.

[Bill]

Looks like its back up!

http://www.hulu.com/watch/38041/
saturday-night-live-washington-approves-the-bailout#s-
p1-so-i5

As far as I can tell, they took out the subtitles for the Sandlers (saying that they should be shot) , and the part where he thanks Pelosi and Frank for helping cover their corrupt activities.

[Kevin]

Chris Y, thanks for taking the time. Very informative.

[Susan]

"Both political parties have mortgage mud and housing bubble goo all over them. Yes, Republicans tried to throw a rope around Fannie Mae, and Democrats stopped them."

You know what I read now? Actual analysis, rather than this, "Oh OH! It's EVERYONE'S fault, therefore no one can be blamed" crap.

Here's some real reporting:

Ponder how stupid you must think Americans are to believe that you can blame the financial crisis on the 2004 statements of House Democrats about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac when that was a time when the GOP controlled all branches of the Government and nothing could have been more inconsequential than what Barney Frank or Maxine Waters, languishing in the minority in Tom DeLay's tyrannical House, said or did about anything.

In sum, Americans hate the way the country has been ruled, the economic crisis is making them hate that more by the minute, and the country has been dominated by Republican rule for the last eight years -- at least.
---
You've got to go to the blogs for the good stuff now, people:

A country in shambles, under GOP rule

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
2008/10/04/election/index.html

[TELEPROMPTER PRESIDENT]

They should have given a reason when they yanked it rather than explaining it later.

www.TeleprompterPresident.com - Obama Bloopers & Commentary

[JS]

http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/

This is the unedited version