Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

Gore kills on SNL by Virginia Heffernan

When I turned on SNL last night, I was all "Holy shit, AL GORE IS HOSTING!" Since I don't get those channels, I missed him doing his one-liners on Letterman and whatnot, but for the first half of SNL, yeah, he killed. Him sitting in a hot-tub and wrap around arms drinking wine while 'courting' a Vice-Presidential candidate was hilarious. But the above-linked article is on-point about the Trent Lott bit. I was laughing my ass off when I saw his impression of Lott. Not so much for the routine (which was funny), but for the pure cajones it took to do it.

Gore also made a mock Hardball appearance in which he, throwing caution to the wind, impersonated Trent Lott, well-wigged and with hints of a pinched, Deep South accent. "Chris," he said to Hammond's Chris Matthews. "When I said our country wouldn't have all these problems if Strom Thurmond had been elected president, it had nothing to do with segregation. I simply meant that things would've been better because he would've kept white people and black people separate."

And this line too (from this newsgroup post):

Gore (as Lott): "Chris, Chris! It has come to my attention that some of comments about Strom Thurmond a minute ago may have been construed as racially insensitive. Let me apologize. I meant no respect -- no disrespect to any white people. I myself am a white man and some if not all my friends are white. Let me make this clear, as as I'm in office, we will leave no white person behind."

I read that McCain killed when he was on too, but I missed it. Damn. read more →