July 28, 2009, - 2:31 pm

Don’t Believe the Hype: Shatner Palin Video Not Funny

By Debbie Schlussel

Frequent readers know I’m no fan of Sarah Palin because I think she’s a phony as a conservative and extremely ignorant.

But a video of William Shatner reading parts of her breathy farewell speech, on last night’s “Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien,” just isn’t funny.  Not in the least.  The video is a trending topic on Twitter.  But that’s only because people with zero sense of humor will laugh at anything about Palin.  There’s much to laugh at there, but not this.  They hate her for the wrong reasons (the right reasons: she’s a fraud, ignoramus, selfish, a quitter, over-rated, a feminist who shoved her husband into the emasculating Mr. Mom role, and, again, not a conservative).

Here’s the unfunny video, followed by my all-time favorite Shatner video from “Saturday Night Live” (you know the one, and if you don’t, “Get a Life”):

Get a Life:


Star Trek TOS - William Shatner SNL - Get A Life - MyVideo




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27 Responses

You’ve missed the point. It is William Shatner that is making this funny

Chris on July 28, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Jon Stewart did a pretty good job of skewering her as well.

Plus, the Moment of Zen was priceless, showing Palin advising against accepting government largess while only 3 minutes before bragging about the “free money” that the Alsaskn government “largessed” to its citizens.

dw on July 28, 2009 at 3:53 pm

Shatner is acting like a tool. He was not funny.

Though Palin’s speech had some good points, she is not even close to being capable of running the country correctly. The Right is so impotent to fight KING HUSSEIN COBRAMA and MSM, they openly call all Republicans whack jobs on national television. Who do they have defending them? Where is the Right’s Jesse Ventura? Jesse has everyone crawling under their chair when he is done with them. I don’t thik Palin strikes fear in the MSM and the MSM hopes she gets the Republican nomination for obvious reasons.

CaliforniaScreaming on July 28, 2009 at 4:18 pm

Debbie is also right that the monologue sucks. None of the late night monologues are any good. The best is Craig Ferguson but he is a far lefty.

BWR on July 28, 2009 at 4:32 pm

Maybe it doesn’t appeal to your sense of humor, but for many of us, it is funny. Chris is right, you missed the point, it was Shatner’s reading, which if you’ve ever been to poetry reading you’ll notice satirizes the way poetry is read while also poking a little fun at Palin’s expense. It wasn’t about hating her. It was about a poorly written political speech being used to create an ironic juxtaposition, as in, political speech/poetry slam. Maybe not to your taste, but don’t assume you know why others find it funny. Also, you might hate Palin for your own reasons and others may hate or like her for theirs. Your reasons are not what I consider all the right ones. As for the whole right vs. left thing you have going… well a lot of this country is sick and tired of that partisan garbage. It is sooo last century…

Terry on July 28, 2009 at 5:40 pm

Great new website, look, Debbie.

I disagree with your opinion of Governor Palin, but we agree to disagree. And that’s the freedom we enjoy as Americans, eh?

Shatner has been an embarrassment to Star Trek fans over the years. He’s definitely not funny. Period. Conan O’Brien? Jay Leno was a worthy successor to Johnny. Jay was funny with class. I rarely stayed up that late to watch, but when I did he was not disappointing. All others on late night, from what I’ve wasted the time to see or by video clips, including Letterman, are generally crude, crass, boring and irrelevant. But a condemning testimony to the condition of our society. We are condemned by what we laugh at. I know. I’m in a conservative minority. So be it. Let the stoning begin…

Floyd R. Turbo on July 28, 2009 at 6:17 pm

Debbie, I have a confession to make. I LOVE SARAH PALIN. She first came to my attention when she was giving a speech in Alaska on C-span. I felt she was sincere, honest and quite intelligent.

Yes, I know there are many people who hate her, but she would be a good VP or President. She would certainly be better than the people we have in office now. Being from NY I would take her over anyone we have in office now and many of them have great credentials.

However, I have to correct some points being made. One she is a success in Alaska and I guess people don’t like that because she didn’t go to an ivy league school. Two, her husband took the Summer off because working on the north slope would require he be away for a couple weeks at a time. I have no problem with guys taking some time off to be with their family. Third, Jon stewart, Letterman and the rest of late night hosts are not that funny except for Jay Leno.
The moment of Zen was stupid because she does advise against government largess. However, that is different than the money she gave to the people in the form of a $1,200 dollar check. The difference is according to the Alaskan constitution the people are share holders of the minerals etc. So the people have been getting money for years. She was able to get a higher amount that the people deserved according to Alaskan law.

I will continue to support her and if not in 2012, then maybe she will run in 2016.

S: 1) Todd Palin admitted in several interviews, including one he sold to People Magazine, that he quit his work to take care of the kids and be Mr. Mom. We’ve quoted him several times about that. In fact, he and Bristol Palin told People he quit working (not during the summer), so he could raise her kid while she goes tanning.

http://www.debbieschlussel.com/4203/with-nomination-of-mr-mom-as-second-lady-gop-throws-traditional-family-values-masculinity-out-the-window/

http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:LwEIzmPlwpMJ:www.debbieschlussel.com/archives/2009/05/pro-abstinence.html+site:www.debbieschlussel.com+schlussel+%22bristol+palin%22+%22people+magazine%22&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

2) Sarah Palin didn’t “give” the people of Alaska those checks. The oil companies, on whom this fake conservative raised taxes, did. And guess who paid more in gas prices for that? You and me. DS

spaceship22 on July 28, 2009 at 6:20 pm

Refering to Shatner as a “Master Thespian” is like refering to a weed-eater as a hair styling tool…

Mistress_Dee on July 28, 2009 at 6:43 pm

I really like your new website. Very much nicer!

Jay on July 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm

Soaring through nature’s finest show.
Denali, the great one,
soaring under the midnight sun.
And then the extremes. In the winter time,
it’s the frozen road that is competing
with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty,
the cold? though, doesn’t it split
the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs?
And then in the summertime such extreme,
summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter
than just some months ago,
than just some months from now,
with fireweed blooming along the frost heaves
and merciless rivers that are rushing and carving
and reminding us that here,
Mother Nature wins.
It is as throughout all Alaska
that big wild good life teeming along the? road
that is north to the future.

I agree with Debbie… Sarah Palin was much more comical than Shatner.

Jambo on July 28, 2009 at 7:03 pm

You guys think what the Shat did was unfunny…TAKE A LOOK AT SOMETHING WAY EMBARASSING FOR HIM FROM BACK IN THE DAY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rq4K8LTgZHk&feature=related

Bob Porrazzo on July 28, 2009 at 7:30 pm

comment6

bulletdodger on July 28, 2009 at 9:22 pm

I always liked Shatner in his role from Star Trek. Even so, especially as a German where we don’t go sway with emotions for this and that thought the whole Trekkie thing quite redicilous. If Shatner did it because he is just like another liberal or not I can’t say. It’s hard to figure things out nowadays because it’s all and only about bashing others for not sharing the same political views and that’s sad. We came a long way ‘we agree to disagree’ for the worse.

Andy on July 28, 2009 at 11:50 pm

Sarah Palin has many problems in many areas, but the media coverage of her has been and is over the top. Sarah Palin is no longer a presidential running mate, nor is she a governor. This chorus line castigation of her goes beyond bizarre. It seems like the mirror image of the celebratory nonsense we had to endure after the deaths of Tim Russert and Walter Cronkite. There is a totalitarian feel to it.

Sorrow01 on July 29, 2009 at 1:11 am

Spaceship22, don’t apologize for liking Sarah Palin, I do too. Just remember, they were saying the same kind of things and worse about Ronald Reagan when he ran for President (in the primaries in ’76 and in the elections of ’80 and ’84, by liberals and Republicans alike. And now he is held out as the standard bearer for conservatism.

You know the more the left wing media attack her, the more of a threat she poses.
I think that the only Republican who would have a chance of winning the next election for President is the one person the media maligns the most. So far that is Sarah Palin.

BONNI on July 29, 2009 at 1:52 am

i don’t think Shatner is TRYING to be funny…he’s reading it as a poem…and it sounds pretty good like that.

Face it, Palin and the lunatic fringe she represents is HISTORY, soon to be ANCIENT history!

EminemsRevenge on July 29, 2009 at 8:18 am

Being a father is not an “emasculating” role and if it weren’t for feminists you’d be at home in the kitchen instead of a lawyer and media personality so what’s your beef against feminists? If you don’t like them or what they’ve done, go back home and quit complaining, hypocrite.

B: Trying to get out my magic decoder ring so I can find where I’ve ever written that being a father is an “emasculating” role. What I’ve written, to repeat for the functionally illiterate (you), is that a father playing Mr. Mom is emasculating. RIF (Reading Is Fundamental). DS

Betty on July 29, 2009 at 10:45 am

I believe Sarah Palin will be a voice in opposition to the chosen one. I will be grateful for that. There is one thing I hate as much as the left… The GOP in DC that do not have the balls to fight back. She has the balls, rather she runs for president or not, her voice is important. The media will have to cover her because they are obsessed.

sharon on July 29, 2009 at 12:35 pm

Well, it wasn’t that funny, even though I liked Shatner’s
early work and that SNL skit was hilarious. I think you’re
a little tough on Sarah, she’s no Ivy League product, she’s
a Western person, not overly educated, but exhibits more common sense than most of the politicians shaping our destiny
these days. I don’t see a Ronald Reagan in our ranks, but I
think she’d be a definite improvement over the choices we’ve
had recently: Al Gore, John Kerry, John McCain, Barack, Hillary, among others. I don’t think it was smart for her to
quit, but then again I wouldn’t like piling up legal bills to
defend myself from all the Lefties’ ethic complaints and lawsuits.

Daniel on July 29, 2009 at 3:20 pm

The problem with Sarah Palin is her lifestyle contradicts accepted conservative beliefs about parenting, the family and practicing what you preach. And then there’s her inability to show she knows what she’s talking about. The woman is many things but being a conservative isn’t one of them. Bill Shatner’s video may not be funny and yet some people come on here to defend her record that just makes it hard to dismiss unfair satire. We all know that liberals don’t take to being laughed at and when it comes to their beliefs, they have as much relevance as old school magic and and the Pacific Ocean cargo cults. The last thing conservatives should do is engage in blind worship of a person and our side needs to go into the next presidential election with eyes wide open. Regardless of one sees in a YouTube video.

NormanF on July 29, 2009 at 5:01 pm

Palin’s speech sounded like ridiculous beat poetry, and Shatner read it as such. Why so uptight about it? It’s just silly fun.

Libertarian Bulbasaur on July 29, 2009 at 11:00 pm

William Shatner was a joke back when he was on Star Trek. He’s still a joke today.

And, let’s talk a little reality when it comes to Governor Palin, shall we?

First, she never said she could see Russia from her house. She said you can see Russia from Alaska. That is a simple fact of geography.

Second, in 2007 Governor Murkowski’s budget included requests to the federal government to fund 63 projects at a cost of $349,497,000.

Governor Palin’s 2010 budget included a total request to the federal government to fund 8 projects at a cost of $69,100,000… and she was vilified for refusing some of the stimulus money because it saddled Alaskans with more federal redtape and regulations.

Given those two things alone, it sure is easy to see how Governor Palin isn’t a conservative.

C: She accepted 97% of the federal stimulus money after pretending to be against it. Ditto for the bridge to nowhere. She promotes her daughter’s single motherhood and her tabloid family. He family is led by a Mr. Mom, while she plays the man and pursues her ambitions selfishly and neglects her family. She supports amnesty for illegal aliens, a Palestinian state, and believes the “right to privacy”–the basis of Roe v. Wade–exists in the Constitution. She’s no conservative. Wake. Up. DS

CJHill on July 30, 2009 at 1:18 pm

This is why I so rarely visit your site. You have some amazing ideas at times and you express yourself quite beautifully at times.

At other times, we get this. You post something that seems to have very little thought attached to it and is instead filled with venom.

Governor Palin did not ‘promote’ her daughter’s single motherhood or her ‘tabloid family’. If Todd Palin wants to support his wife by taking care of their children, more power to him. Ronald Reagan – remember him – supported amnesty for illegals. And, finally, a lot of people, conservatives included, suffer under the misguided notion that the ‘right to privacy’ is in the Constitution.

It’s sad to thing that you chose to ignore her record of cutting taxes and spending and dismiss her. It also makes me wonder what your real problem with her is.

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