Join Paul Farhi on Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 1 p.m. ET for all things pop culture ("Saturday Night Live's" political sketches, sideline reporters, An American Carol, etc.) to a few things not (like his story on John McCain's first marriage). Part of this great country. And also. Thank you.

A transcript follows.

Farhi is a reporter in The Post's Style section, writing about media and popular culture. He's been watching TV and listening to the radio since "The Monkees" were in first run and Adam West was a star. Born in Brooklyn and raised in Los Angeles, Farhi had brief stints in the movie business (as an usher at the Picwood Theater), and in the auto industry (rental car lot guy) before devoting himself full-time to word processing. His car has 15 radio pre-sets and his cable system has 500 channels. He vows to use all of them for good instead of evil.

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Paul Farhi: Meanwhile, much to chat about here. Has Tina Fey created a lifetime job guarantee with her Sarah Palin imitation? (Not that she needs a lifetime job guarantee). Truly, it's one of the best SNL character parodies since....since...Darrell Hammond as Jesse Jackson?

Maybe you can do better. Let's go to the phones...

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Paul Farhi: Greetings, all, and thanks for moseying by....First, a little housekeeping bidness. Apropos our scholarly discussion of female sideline reporters, an alert chatter from West 57th Street in the quaint little village of Manhattan notes the existing of this site, sidelinehotties.com. I don't know which is weirder--that there are so many female sideline reporters, or that there are so many female sideline reporters that someone has now worked up a site about them.

Paul Farhi: Ooops. I screwed up (&*%$^ computers!).

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washingtonpost.com: Sidelinehotties.com

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Fairfax, Va.: Just a quick note to congratulate you on an excellent article yesterday about Carol McCain.

washingtonpost.com: The Separate Peace of John And Carol ( Post, Oct. 6)

Paul Farhi: Thanks. The mail/response on that one has been interesting. A fair number of people found it "even-handed." But a lesser number (but still enough) thought it was a hatchet job on McCain. I think I can reconcile that, however: The haters thought it was unfair to bring up the *subject.* But, at least I'd like to think, that they thought my treatment of the subject was fair. Or something.

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Has Tina Fey created a lifetime job guarantee with her Sarah Palin imitation?: LIFETIME? Hope not, because that would Palin would be in the spotlight for a long time.

Paul Farhi: Well, Sarah will likely be with us for a while, one way or another. Have you ever seen/heard of any individual who in just 30-plus days has created sooo many instantly identifiable catchphrases? I could start a list...

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Lifetime job: I certainly hope not. I love Tina Fey and wish her a long and wonderful career (her recent Emmy for the show that she created and stars in almost seems an afterthought these days). But I hope that Sarah Palin exhausts her 15 minutes and disappears completely from the scene as of, say, November 5. I look forward to the day when Fey's spot-on impression will seem as dated as Dana Carvey's Ross Perot.

Paul Farhi:"Joe Six-Pack Americans."

"I said thanks but no thanks for that Bridge to Nowhere..."

Stop me before I go on...

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Herndon, Va.: Mr. F: I wanted to give a somewhat delayed tribute to the great drummer, Earl Palmer, who passed in September. A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, he played on Fats Domino's earliest recordings, Little Richard on "Tutti Fruitti," Ike and Tina Turner's "River Deep, Mountain High," and did studio work with such artists as Frank Sinatra, Ray Charles and the Beach Boys. In his later years, when playing on a music video with "Cracker," one of the members made the mistake of asking Palmer if he would have any trouble playing along with the songs. Palmer's reply "I invented this s---"

Paul Farhi: Ah. Thank you. I've never heard of Mr. Palmer, but that's a Hall of Fame career all right.

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The Airless Cubicle: Paul -- One of the reasons radio station quality declined since deregulation has been the high prices paid for radio stations which required high revenue from advertisting to service the debt, which in turn required programs that offended few to bring in listeners per hour. How can Citadel and Clear Channel and CBS Radio survive these tougher times? Is Red Zebra going to be a tax writeoff for Dan Snyder? Which major radio station in the D.C. area will go under receivership or bankruptcy first?

Paul Farhi: You say that like it's a bad thing. Is it? Wouldn't the need to serve the broadest possible audience because of the sword of debt hanging over your head theoretically make you a better radio station rather than a worse one? I agree that the need to make the monthly numbers might crowd out some experimentation, but the problem with many experiments is that they fail. So, maybe debt is irrelevant here. I'm just sayin'...

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Takoma Park, Md.: Wow, conservatives really have a hard time with humor. I think that Michael Moore is kind of a blowhard, but I would know better than invoking George Patton to mock him. And comparing the U.S. Civil War to the current war in Iraq? Hmmm.

washingtonpost.com: An American Carol

Paul Farhi: Interesting comment. I was saying the same thing to an editor yesterday--that there have been few, if any, "conservative" movies that have ever succeeded. You could argue that that's because there have been so few "conservative" movies. But I can't think of one that ever drew a big audience. "American Carol" is a flop. "Red Dawn" was so-so at the box office, as was "Green Berets" (John Wayne in a flag-waving pro-Vietnam flick). Others?

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Upper Peninsula, Mich.: Hi Paul, I don't think Tina Fey is going to get too much more mileage of Gov. Palin -- because she (the Governor) is just too easy to imitate. Yes, there is a physical resemblance and Fey has the comic chops, but -- like Bill Clinton -- Palin is just too easy sound-like, look like, and satirize. If Palin remains on the public stage, all female comics will work her into their repertoire.

Paul Farhi: Yeah, and it's also possible that people will tire of the same old jokes about her (the accent, the hair, the conservative politics, etc.). I know I'm tired of comics doing John-McCain-is-old jokes and Bill-Clinton-is-a-womanizer jokes.

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Harrisburg, Pa.: What up, P-Far?

Have you previewed "Life on Mars"? So far, the new season is seeming a little lackluster. I never thought I'd say this, but Alec Baldwin was right: "Earl" really is done. Looking forward to "30 Rock," but is there anything new worth checking out before the return of "Lost" and "24"?

Paul Farhi: I'm intrigued by "Life on Mars." I love the time travel thing (premise: contempo cop goes back to 1973 to work on force), as I am on record being the only person in American to like "Journeyman" from last year. And "Life on Mars" has Harvey Keitel in it. So, you're guaranteed at least a minimum of fine entertainment value.

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Takoma Park, Md.: I think that the best SNL political impersonation was the duo of Dana Carvey as Ross Perot and Phil Hartman as Admiral Stockdale.

"When you were quiet there for an hour, that was world class!"

Paul Farhi: Phil Hartman is one of the great SNL performers of all time. But his Stockdale was easy, and a one-note impersonation at that.

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Purcellville, Va.: Any ideas on how much of Sarah Palin's public perception is based on "SNL" (and all its replays) versus her actual interviews and campaign appearances?

Paul Farhi: Fascinating question, and a hard one to answer, of course (not sure how you'd construct a question to tease out which is which). Thing is, any comic riff like that has to play off something real, so they're not entirely making it up. Plus, any impersonation exaggerates one or two or three qualities about a person. So, um, ah...I guess I don't know what's what.

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Silver Spring, Md.: It's a weird radio landscape out there. I have always loved radio and enjoy listening to WTOP, NPR, baseball and (even!) music. What's the deal with "Obama 1260"? Is that legal? Dan Snyder radio, WTOP and Federal News Radio seems to be playing some sort of musical chairs with their frequencies.

If radio is a "warm" medium and TV is a "cool" medium, does that somehow explain why radio is a conservative medium and TV (SNL, scripted shows) is more liberal? Even when conservative material succeeds on TV (FoxNews) it's pretty much radio with moving pictures of the speaker's face.

Paul Farhi: What's illegal about "Obama 1260" and "McCain 570" (for the uninitiated: Dan Snyder's fledgling radio empire has taken its two very low-rated AM stations and turned them into Dem and Repub stations until Election Day). Is there some FCC rule that says you can't promote your station(s) this way?

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Palin and Fey: Paul, do you think Palin will really show up on SNL? It would definitely be a ratings grabber. The only thing about it is that Tina Fey has pretty much openly insulted Palin (with her, Please help me stop playing this lady after Nov 5 line at the Emmys) so I wonder if she and Palin would be willing to actually share the stage... Fey showed her a lot of contempt on a personal level. It's one thing when Tina is "just doing her job", it's another when she personally speaks out against her. But I could see Palin being game for it, so who knows.

Paul Farhi: Frankly, I think it would be a BRILLIANT stroke for Palin to come on SNL opposite Tina-as-Palin. It would a) show Palin has a sense of humor about herself; and b) be widely watched, giving a ton o' publicity for the campaign at a time it could really use it. Heck, Hillary Clinton did it, after years and years of vicious SNL skits about her. Obama and McCain have done it, too (McCain even hosted a few years ago).

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Leesburg, Va.: I enjoyed your story on John McCain's first marriage. One thing I wasn't clear on: What led him to adopt Carol's kids from HER first marriage? What happened to their dad?

washingtonpost.com: The Separate Peace of John And Carol ( Post, Oct. 6)

Paul Farhi: Carol and her first husband, Alasdair Swanson, a classmate of John McCain's at the Naval Academy, were divorced in the early 1960s. Apparently a very bitter parting. But I, too, am unclear about what happened to him after the fact. He would have to have given up his parental rights, or had them taken from him by a court, for John to have adopted Carol's two boys. I just don't know.

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Purcellville, Va.: Speaking of SNL, I think Kristin Wiig has got to be one of the funniest players they've had in a long time. There's just something about her that makes me laugh. She's a natural, like Gilda Radner, who can be funny just walking on stage. The Lennon Sisters parody last week had me in tears I was laughing so hard, and then there's the "just kidding" guest on Weekend Update. Thoughts?

Paul Farhi: I've said this before and will again: Female performers have been stronger on SNL for the past, oh, six to eight years, than the male players. Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Tina Fey, Molly Shannon, Sheri Oteri, Rachel Dratch and now Kristin (I might be missing someone) vs. who on the male side? Will Ferrell?

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From Your Neighboorhood: Paul,

I have it on good authority that we live near each other. Now I know you have HD or satellite radio and I only have my normal AM/FM car radio, but 980 AM is very hard to pull in after the sun goes down. So how am I going to be able to listen to the Redskins when they play a 4:00 game and I'm out and about? Are there any other stations that come in well at night that have the Redskins games?

Paul Farhi: Dude, quit stalking me...The Redskins are literally on five stations locally (check local listings, as they say). I admit the signals range from so-so (980) to outright crappy, but you can usually hear them somewhere.

Maybe what you have to do is play radio roulette--keep hitting the pre-sets tuned to all the stations until the sunspots die down and you can hear one of 'em clearly.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I asked about the legality of "Obama 1260" and didn't know about "McCain 570." I was sort of joking about the old days of the Fairness Doctrine (kids, ask your grandpa).

What do you think about my idea that radio is a cool-conservative medium and that TV is a warm-liberal medium?

Paul Farhi: I happen to have Marshall McLuhan right here (ancient Woody Allen/"Annie Hall" reference, thankyouverymush)...Um, I don't get it. What's inherently conservative about radio and inherently lib about TV?

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SO LET DOWN: Got FiOS TV, had been looking forward to it for so long! Sure, pic is better, but since they have so few channels in the OnDemand section, I can't watch what I used to watch on Comcast. Most of OnDemand is sports and soap operas. I used to watch BBC, Sundance, cool stuff OnDemand. I am SO let down. What the crappy am I paying for? And Sundance is $15 a month extra, whereas that was free with Comcast. Bait and Switch.

Paul Farhi: I'm loving my OnDemand on Comcast. Could be a reason NOT to switch to FiOS. On the other hand, I don't love Comcast's prices or customer service, which ARE reasons to switch to FiOS (when it shows up in my 'hood, which appears to be never).

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The Airless Cubicle: Paul -- The sunspots have died down! There was a period of 62 days this quarter where there were no sunspots whatsoever on the surface of the Sun. This means long-distance communication using the ionosphere should be reliable.

In Anne Arundel County, 92.7 is a good frequency to hear Red Zebra.

Paul Farhi: Dang. You people know EVERYthing. But I already sorta knew that.

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Re: SNL: Andy Samberg is pretty amazing, but you're right, the female performers are generally much stronger than the male performers.

Paul Farhi: Yes, Samberg is loveable, but mostly for his SNL Digital Shorts, which are often brilliant. I can't think of one sketch character he does, however...

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Carol McCain: Paul, I found the article on the McCain's marriage very interesting. You mentioned that Carol McCain worked for Nancy Reagan but didn't mention how Carol McCain is so similar to Jane Wyman in having faded off into retirement, supporting their former husbands and never saying a bad thing about them. In addition, the children from each of these first marriages did not like Carol McCain or Nancy Reagan until years down the road. I thought these details would have really added more depth to the Carol McCain/Nancy Reagan relationship.

Paul Farhi: Fascinating parallel, yes, that only occurred to me this morning (too late for print, I guess). But does the Wyman/Nancy vs. Carol/Cindy timing break down a bit? I mean, weren't Ron and Jane divorced when Ron met Nancy? Because John and Carol were still married when John took up with Cindy...

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vs. who on the male side? Will Ferrell? : Jimmy what's his name.

Paul Farhi: Fallon. Judges....? [Sound of bell ringing] Yes! We'll accept that answer.

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Re: Conservative Movies: How about anything starring Mel Gibson in the past decade?? His personal politics bleed through in any of his flicks, starting with "Ransom" (stupid government/FBI bungles his son's kidnapping case and he has to take the law into his own hands), "The Patriot" (Big Bad British resort to killing innocent children, which is completely unsubstantiated), and the best of all, "The Passion of the Christ" (once again blaming the Jews for the crucifiction of Jesus). Most of those were pretty successful at the box office, especially "Christ".

Paul Farhi: Fair point(s), but with a couple of teeny quibbles, I think. "Passion" was a "culturally" conservative movie (veneration of literal religious teaching), but not particularly conservative politically. As for "stupid/bad government" themes, that would open up a number of films to being called "conservative." Wouldn't, say, Oliver Stone's "JFK" fit this definition? And would anyone call Stone "conservative"?

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Not Sf, Calif.:"Dirty Harry" was a pretty popular conservative movie. I think the problem is when you try to be conservative first and a movie second. Same reason why "conservative" comic strips tend not to be funny. Garry Trudeau didn't set out to write a liberal comic strip, it just comes out that way because that's who he is, Whereas "Mallard Fillmore" is not funny not because it has a conservative view, but because all of its punchlines are a variation of "Boy, aren't liberals stupid?". Same reason why Fox's attempt at a conservative version of "The Daily Show" is a flop. You have to start with something real and let others decide if it's "liberal" or "conservative".

Paul Farhi: Well said, NSFC. This explains, too, why "American Carol" isn't funny. It loads all of its pro-conservative/anti-lib baggage at the front of the screen, then seeks to build a movie around it. Should have been the other way around.

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Alexandria, Va.: Your story about McCain's first marriage was enlightening. They were only married a little over two years before he was imprisoned for 5 1/2? It had to be incredibly difficult to rebuild that relationship. I still don't think he should have been dating Cindy while still married to Carol, but I am little more understanding of it. And I say all this as an Obama supporter.

Paul Farhi: Personally, I can't, and won't, judge. Can anyone really understand the mysteries of the human heart from the outside? (Heck, people often don't understand them from the inside). And when you lay some extreme circumstances on to John and Carol's marriage--his imprisonment, her terrible car accident--you're really creating an extremely complicated emotional terrain. I'm standing clear.

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Leesburg, Va.: Unlike Carol McCain, who's faded into obscurity, Jane Wyman was the star of her own TV show during the Reagan administration. Can't get much different than that.

Paul Farhi: Yeah, well, Carol wasn't really a "public" person like Jane Wyman, so not a fair basis of comparison. But Carol seems to have done perfectly well for herself; she held a series of administrative/managerial jobs in Washington and Philadelphia in the years after the divorce, and did fine, by all accounts.

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UPS guy: Is anyone else sick of the guy on the UPS commercials?

Paul Farhi: I think I am, but then I get mesmerized by how straight and fast that guy can draw. And I'm sucked in again...

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Normalizing Palin?: Paul, Will Ferrell has said that he, at least in part, regrets his George W. Bush impression years ago. He felt like his impression made Bush palatable to more Americans, or at least made them less concerned about his actual credentials because, well, he was hilarious. He was Will Ferrell.

Do you think there is any danger of Fey's beloved sketches making Palin more acceptable to American voters?

Paul Farhi: That's very interesting. This may explain why Ferrell made those very anti-Bush videos (post-SNL) that are all over the Interweb...But as for Fey, I don't think it's the same thing. She's highlighting all of Palin's "negatives"--her evasive answers, her non-answers, her non-sensical answers. Very bad for Ms. P., I think.

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Re: SNL: I don't know -- Andy Samburg is someone that I really want to like, but the more skits I see him in, the more I think that the "Chronicles of Narnia" short or the one with Justin Timberlake were the exceptions rather than the rule on his funny-ness factor. Many of his other shorts such as the one last week, or "laser cats" I find just dumb and hard to not fast forward through.

Paul Farhi: Yeah, some of the shorts have flopped, but if check the list of what has aired in the past 3(?) years, you'll find that he (and his collaborators) have a pretty high batting average. I mean, relative to the number of SNL skits that can be deemed winners, the digital shorts are out of the park. How about Peyton Manning for Boys and Girls Clubs?

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Washington, D.C.: I think that "Rambo" was a conservative movie that did well at the box office. The Dirty Harry movies, as well as some other movies of the early 1970s, did well with a message that sometimes vigilantism is necessary to clean up the streets.

Of course, none of those movies was a comedy. I mean, not intentionally.

Paul Farhi: Right. And Charles Bronson's "Death Wish" movies got there before Dirty Harry did on the clean-up-the-streets theme. But, you know, if law-and-order themes qualify a movie as "conservative," isn't every cop movie a conservative movie? Seems like a pretty loose definition.

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Springfield, Va.: I have FiOS and the OnDemand feature is quite extensive. It is as good or mre than I had with Cox a few years ago before I switched. Not sure what the previous poster is talking about.

Paul Farhi: Ah. Thank you. FiOS back on in the Farhi household. Now, if I could only convince Verizon to build in my neighborhood...

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Herndon, Va.: Mr. F: My memory tells me "The Green Berets" was a financially successful movie. (I had the joy of watching it in Vietnam with some Special Forces types in the audience -- they were either cheering or laughing hysterically at errors in the movie).

Paul Farhi: I just checked Boxofficemojo.com, which keeps records of the theatrical performance of thousands of movies. Unfortunately, "Green Berets" gets an "N/A" in terms of its box office results. But it does say it was released on July 4, 1968. And darn if it isn't fondly remembered, as you suggest. A real document of its time, of a sort.

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South Riding, Va.: Actually, your article made me sympathize just a smidgeon with McCain, once I learned that he did make an effort to provide materially for his jilted wife and their kids. They both had traumatic experiences, and that's hard on even the healthiest marriage. I still don't care for him or his treatment of women, but I think that at least in this case, he tried to do some right by her.

Paul Farhi: This seems to be the case. And Carol has never complained, as far as I know.

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U.P., MI ... again: Forrest Gump really impressed me as a movie with not-to-well cloaked conservative voice to it. Especially when the girl (Jenny?) goes the hippy route to certain tragedy.

Paul Farhi: Really? Was never aware of "Forrest Gump's" politics. Maybe that was its political genius!

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RE: Isn't every cop movie a conservative movie?: Not every cop movie is so dismissive of courts or constitutional protections against wrongful prosecution.

Paul Farhi: Yeah, that whole habeus corpus/innocent-until-proven-guilty thing. Sooo inconvenient...

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Jane and Ron vs. Carol and John: Big difference: Jane Wyman dumped Ronald Reagan because she found his interest in politics boring. I don't think Ron even met Nancy till some time later. John McCain, on the other hand, was cheating on Carol for many months before the divorce proceedings even began. In fact, that's what caused them.

Paul Farhi: You may be right, but I'm not clear on that. I got conflicting information about how much Carol knew about John's cheating during the later stages of the marriage. Again, you don't know what was going on between them. I'm not condoning infidelity, mind you. I AM saying that the marriage might have been over, for all practical if not legal purposes, long before the subject of divorce or infidelity ever came up.

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Enuf: Tina Fey's impersonation is great. But, I find it bizarre how much news coverage it gets. All of the networks show it, I hear excerpts on WTOP and NPR...what gives? Why is a skit considered so newsworthy? (My theory: It's easier for stations to write stories about this than to go out and report, um, real news.)

Paul Farhi: Well, it's just darn entertaining. Who doesn't want to see/hear that? And it's vaguely newsworthy, too, given the campaign...

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Conservative movies and TV: Wasn't "Forrest Gump" essentially a conservative movie? And on TV, what about all those Jerry Bruckheimer crime procedurals?

Paul Farhi:"CSI" is conservative? How?

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What Might Be Illegal: Is that your way of saying you're not coming after me when I launch my new station Farhi 1580?

Paul Farhi: Vaya con dios, mi amigo.*

*Translation: The Federal Copyright Act of 1947 imposes severe penalties for the unauthorized use of another's name or likeness. Our attorneys will be in touch.

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On the other hand...:...Perry Mason was a truly subversive series (both on TV and in the original novels), because the accused was (almost) always innocent. Interesting that it flourished during the McCarthy red-baiting era.

Paul Farhi: Now wait a second. "Perry Mason" was liberal because it accorded basic rights to the accused? Are you saying that conservatives are defined as those who have no respect for the Constitution? (And no fair answering, "Dick Cheney").

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re: I have FiOS and the OnDemand feature is quite extensive: I'm not talking about movies. I'm talking about seeing series OnDemand on FX ("It's always Sunny"), BBC, TBS, etc. Richmond does NOT have BBC OnDemand, does NOT have Fx OnDemand

Paul Farhi: Different cable systems, different OnDemand offerings, I guess.

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Frederick, Md. I hope the election results will send Lipstick and Six-Pack back to Alaska. She crammed for the VP debate, but it was too little, too late (wink). And would someone please take her to the salon to cut her bangs!

Paul Farhi: The bang thing is a completely cheap shot, Frederick! (But, um, yeah, I commented on the same thing about five minutes in, too. Very distracting).

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Followup Question:"And it's vaguely newsworthy, too, given the campaign." No, the debates or the interviews are newsworthy. The satire of the debates are...entertainment. I'm not saying they're not hilarious. (They are.) But, it ain't news. And, this is often where the news media gets in trouble with accusations of bias: They confuse news and entertainment -- the latter often reflecting the biases of its creator.

Paul Farhi: I think you have a rather narrow definition of news. Those parodies reach millions of viewers, and might have some impact on perception (as we noted earlier). Fair game, I say. And, equal time wise, Fred Armisen's imitation of Obama and Amy Poehler's Hillary were covered pretty well, too.

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Pittsburgh, Pa.: One reason for the extensive news coverage Maybe of Tina Fey's impression of Sarah Palin is that it affords a painless way for viewers to relive some of Palin's worst moments, sort of the "spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down" school of reporting. More effective than journalistic bombast which turns off those who disagree.

Paul Farhi: Good point--we sometimes learn more through satire than through facts. And by the way, Jason Sudeikis' Joe Biden wasn't exactly flattering, either.

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"Perry Mason" was liberal because it accorded basic rights to the accused?: No, no, no. Because the message was that DA Hamilton Burger (Hamburger, get it?) was almost always wrong. Unlike the DAs on crime procedurals (Bruckheimer and Dick Wolf), who are usually right.

Paul Farhi: But doesn't that make it "anti-establishment" more than "liberal"? I mean, "Perry"/Perry took on the system, and showed that the system wasn't always right (in fact, it was NEVER right, since Perry always won). But conservatives challenge the system all the time. That doesn't mean challenging the system is owned by a particular ideology, does it?

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Bangs: I realize from your photo that you're not exactly conversant with bangs. But on women of a certain age they help conceal forehead wrinkles, especially in combination with Botox. Ever notice how many older famous women wear bangs? There's a reason...

Paul Farhi: Hahahaha. Oh, back in the day, I could put David Cassidy to shame!

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Silver Spring, Md.: SNL: they sliced up Gwen pretty well too.

Paul Farhi: True dat.

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Adopting kids: I think that McCain's adopting of Carol's kids was just more common to do at that time. It's my understanding that when couples split in the early 60s, the relationship between dads and their kids were often severed too. It happened in my family -- my father adopted my mom's kid from her first marriage when they got married in 1963.

Finally, count me among those that Fey's Palin becomes as quaint as Ross Perot. Please oh please...

Paul Farhi: Possible. But I'm not really sure...

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What did Cindy see in John?: I can understand how John McCain would have been attracted to a beautiful 25-year-old multi-million dollar heiress. But what did she see in a 43-year-old broken-down married man? What did her family think of her dating a guy so much older? Mine would've packed me off to a convent if I'd tried a stunt like that?

Paul Farhi: I wondered about that, too. Her family absolutely embraced him. I guess he was dashing and charming, and seemed smart and stable and mature. And--again by all accounts--he really was head over heels about her (and vice versa). Hard to argue against all those qualities, if you're her mom or dad.

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Re Carol and Nancy: Paul, you are indeed right. Jane filed for divorce in 1947 and Reagan met Nancy in 1948. However, Reagan is the only president to have ever been divorced and if McCain is elected, he follows in his footsteps. I can't believe I'm looking this stuff up at work but for some reason I can't stop! Also, I've heard of John McCain's temper and saw a clip of him berating a questioner at a town hall meeting. Think we'll get to see that John McCain tonight? And why hasn't SNL done skits on this?

Paul Farhi: Thanks for that (I TOLD you you people know everything). And, no, of course we won't see that tonight. And I doubt we'll see it on SNL, either. This temper thing has been SAID about John McCain, but very few people have ever seen it (if indeed it's true). So it would be hard to satirize something that people are so vague about.

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re: Hard to argue against all those qualities, if you're her mom or dad. : Au contraire: my dad would have punched any married man in the nose if he was courting me! And then he would have given me a long talk about morals and ethics and personal choices.

Paul Farhi: Oh, the married thing. Um...yeah...forgot about that. Yeah, he'd have to sell his impending divorce pretty hard, wouldn't he, to make her folks happy about that? If indeed his divorce WAS pending....

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You Hit the Nail on the Head:"we sometimes learn more through satire than through facts." Because the media does a lousy job of reporting the facts. Because it takes time away from real news and reports on skits. I'd like to see the time wasted on rebroadcasting the Sarah Palin skit we've all seen refocused on reporting on the economic crisis.

Paul Farhi: Actually, "the media" does a perfectly fine job of reporting the facts since every single fact you or I know about McCain, Palin, Obama, etc. was brought to you by "the media."

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SNL : I'd say if the Dems win, they've got the Biden parody down pat(the whole thing about Jon McCain being his "dear friend who happens to be completely deranged" was lovely). But hey REALLY need to get someone who can do Obama -- they are falling way short there.

Paul Farhi: Agree. I'm not a big fan of Armisen's Obama. He's got some physical similarity, but he's wrong on the voice and mannerisms. I wonder if it's too late to make a call to the bullpen and bring in Hammond.

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Fairfax, Va.: The thing about Sarah Palin and the SNL skits is that Palin is just soooooooo parody-able. Her personality, use of language, and mannerisms are over-the-top add beg for satire.

Paul Farhi: Of course! Would you want to watch SNL if they DIDN'T parody her? What would be the point?

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Meridian Hill, Washingtonl, D.C.:"I think you have a rather narrow definition of news. Those parodies reach millions of viewers, and might have some impact on perception (as we noted earlier)."

I take issue with this as well, at least in part. Your rationale seems (perhaps unintentionally) to give credence to the idea that what celebrities do and think is generally "newsworthy" because they're popular and reach millions. But you'll also recall that there was quite a bit of speculation about whether or not Fey would perform the impression in the first place. That "will she or won't she?" coverage certainly is not news but was treated as such (as are the reports that she may continue to reprise the role).

Paul Farhi: Well, personally, I'm glad "the news" isn't only about economic collapse, war and politics. I'm glad there's room to consider (or just show) how the culture is responding to those who want to lead us. If nothing else, it "lightens up" the news, which is so ugly and grim and scary these days. But it does more than provide counter-programming. It also enables us to see a reflection of ourselves, or of the news itself. That's valuable because it helps to see the news in a new light. Signed....a guy who works in the Style section.

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Once again blaming the Jews for the crucifixion of Jesus: Okay, I'm a recovering Catholic, but I also have an MA in theology and a Ph.D. in history and historically speaking, from what we have that survived that time, they were responsible, along with the Roman government. The issue is whether a grudge should be held or whether Jews should be forever in damnation, all sane Catholics and Christians would not agree with. But yes, historically, the Jewish leaders saw him as a threat to their power within the Roman State and made plans to have him arrested, prosecuted and executed. Nothing wrong with that, no need for a religious war, just the facts. Going in as a skeptic, I thought the movie did a good job and did not go out of its way to condemn any and all Jews as a whole.

Paul Farhi: Uh oh.... This can of worms will have to wait until next week. But we will, or at least we can, open it then. In the meantime, I'll give you a word to consider: "Religulous." Discuss....Next week, we'll all hand in our term papers on this topic. Same time, same classroom. Be there. Aloha....And in the meantime, regards to all! --Paul.

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