By Reid Collins on 12.18.02 @ 12:03AM
Back when anyone wanting to be president didn't have to jump into an SNL hot tub or sit down with Lesley Stahl.
Who was that masked man? 'Tis a question devoutly to be wished
in our present age of "let it all hang out." We nowadays
know not only who he was, but what he wears, his sexual
orientation, his capacity to do something about it, how much hangs
out when it all hangs out and what he had for breakfast and with
whom. Worse yet, we are told that we deserve all of this
information and failure to reveal it all is a political death
knell.
No matter how you feel about Al Gore's political future, or
Trent Lott's, it may give you pause to consider the venues required
for their final acts. The Al Gore who appeared on "Saturday Night
Live" in a nude hot tub scene with a fantasy running mate
Lieberman, who performed an outrageous satire on the current
tribulations of Trent Lott, and who engaged in a reprise of his
passionate convention clutch with a woman his own wife would be
assumed to be bowing out of elective politics and entering show
business. Right?
Whoa! CBS Correspondent Lesley Stahl, whose interview with Gore
in which he took himself out of the race was already in the can and
ready for "60 Minutes" the next night, says you have no right to
think that. The Washington Post quotes Ms Stahl as saying
"My whole sense of 'SNL' is that people would think he is
running.
"'SNL,'" she continues, "is one of the ritual stops now on the
campaign. You do the late-night comics and SNL -- it's one of the
Stations of the Cross."
In other words, there is no limit to which one may go in the
name of satire that will be a liability, but there are in fact
minimums of self-revelation and parody one must meet in order to be
eligible for public office, and the highest one in the nation, at
that. Gore's performance on SNL was not conditioned by what he'd
already taped for CBS.
Trent Lott was on that same trail at the same time, searching
desperately for a dog that would hunt, tree his reputation, and
allow him to recapture it intact. His appearances on friendly talk
shows by phone were having little effect, and his live "Passion of
Pascagoula" press conference had not had the desired rehabilitative
effect.
So he attempted to redeem himself on the Black Entertainment
Network, submitting to an interview Monday night with correspondent
Ed Gordon.
The half-hour was riddled with commercials for a Foreman Grill,
Fajitas, Earthlink, Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls, the Fannie-Mae
Foundation, J.C. Penney. It was somewhere right after a Stay-free
Maxipad blurb that Lott declared his allegiance to affirmative
action.This surprised interviewer Gordon as much as Al Gore's
disavowal of a 2004 Presidential bid surprised the "60 Minutes"
audience the night before. But Lott stuck to his guns,
muzzle-loaders though they were. BET rounded out the hour with
interviews with African-Americans who tore the preceding Lott
appearance to pieces. New York Democratic representative Gregory
Meeks declaring the Black Caucus "will not stand for that kind of
language" (referring to the Lott praise for the politics of
Dixiecrats in 1948 that got him in trouble in the first place).
Meeks cannot be presumed to speak for the BET, which has no problem
with any kind of language.
But to the question: Is Stahl right? Does the road to the White
House lead through Saturday Night Live, through
self-abasement and self-parody? Would a re-incarnate Ike have to
bend Mamie backwards on a national stage in order to qualify for
the job of President of the United States? And Sen. Lott. Had
C-Span not telecast the birthday party for Sen. Thurmond would
Lott's look backward have turned him into a pillar of political
salt? It took several cycles for the media to catch on and hit the
rewind button.
But wait a minute. Assuming the Stahl spin theory is correct,
then Lott is being booked on the wrong shows. He belongs
on Saturday Night Live, in full Klan Regalia, rubbing it
in, whooping it up, setting fire to a... And say, could we get Ed
Gordon for a parody interview? Lott in white sheets; Gordon in, oh
hell, a knotted noose. (BET is canceling the Gordon show anyway,
along with much of its news and discussion programming). It's
entertainment that sells.
Can we return to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when we
knew only the essentials of our neighbor's lives, the
qualifications of mechanics to fix, politicians to lead, and
comedians to make us laugh? And the difference was always
there.
topics:
Business, Satire, Africa
