SNL Has Standards?

Who knew?

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 Herbert 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 Tuesday. “We took it down and made some minor changes and it will be back online soon.”

This is the same show that joked about Todd Palin being involved in an incestuous relationship with his daughter. That bit met their standards.

The skit was actually quite funny and right on the mark in its portrayal of Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, George Soros and Herbert and Marian Sandler. Of course, they played Bush as a dummy, but they actually got the facts right about Dems blocking attempts to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the type of lending the Dems were encouraging.

Here's a version of the skit without most of the chyrons that appeared below some of the characters. There's some thought that the wording on those chyrons, especially the words "People Who Should Be Shot" below Herbert and Marian Sandler, is what got the video pulled - probably at the request of their lawyer. By the way, the Sandlers are huge lefty supporters and contributors like George Soros.