Posted on 10/08/2008 6:20:04 PM PDT by vadum
The screen caption that peeved the left.
* * * * *
LA Weekly reports that the timid souls at NBC have decided to put a modified version of the video showing the "Saturday Night Live" skit that lampooned George Soros and Herb and Marion Sandler back up (see our previous blog entries on the skit here and here):
On the past weekend's Saturday Night Live, a brutal but hilarious Democrat-bashing skit aired about the $700 billion federal bailout and the insanity of those subprime mortgages, and it featured lookalikes for George W. Bush, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, hedge fund billionaire and big Democratic donor George Soros, and a parade of sob-story “victims” who turn out to be deadbeats, greedy house-flippers, and schemers. (The unedited YouTube version was taken down by NBC lawyers.) The sketch was embraced by Republicans for appearing to blame Democrats for the Wall Street meltdown. [...]Soros and the Sandlers are part of the shadowy Democracy Alliance, a billionaire's club that aims to push America to the left. (A SamSphere video offers an overview of the Democracy Alliance.)NBC put the video online Sunday morning. But then it disappeared off the network's SNL website soon after. Needless to say, a lot of conspiracy theories were spun, real or imagined, especially by Republicans who wondered if the Democratic Congress, or perhaps Soros himself, were pulling NBC's puppet strings. "If you suspect a few high-placed phone calls to NBC led to the bailout skit slipping down the memory hole, you’re not alone," wrote right-wing commentator Michelle Malkin.
But anyone who actually saw that video could see this might be a lawsuit waiting to happen. Because SNL labeled Herb Sandler and his wife Marion, the real-life former owners of Oakland's Golden West Financial (aka World Savings), as "people who should be shot" and accused them of predatory lending that brought down Wachovia Bank even though no charges have been filed. NBC told me just now they never received any legal threat from the Sandlers. [Though the couple did give an angry interview to The Associated Press about the SNL sketch.]
Instead, the network claimed: "Upon review, we caught certain elements in the sketch that didn't meet our standards. We took it down and made some minor changes and it will be back online soon." Specifically, NBC said it has edited out the chyron on-screen text, "People who should be shot" that appeared beneath the Sandler' lookalikes, as well as the "allegations of corruption" made against the couple. [emphasis added]
Seems the constitution’s guaranties of rights to freedom of expression/ freedom of speech crumbles fairly fast under threat of lawsuit.
It used to be that big communication corporations would say “Bring it on!! We got FLOORS full of lawyers...”
I thought it was funny ... until I found out that they were real people and not made-up like the 2 evicted/foreclosed guys from earlier in the sketch.
So it’s not censorship. It’s just them taking it down and making it not available.
Huge difference.
Lest we forget - real censorship is found in declining Dixie Chicks concert sales and low turn out to Michael Moore movies...
Besides - fears of a libel suit would make me believe MORE that there were calls placed to NBC....
I still have this video posted as a bulletin on my MySpace page.
It’s playing in the background now. It’s not the label about “being shot” that was a problem. It was the one over George Soros that said “Owner of the Democratic Party”.
If they removed only that one, all of us would have caught it and screamed. So they removed all the labels at the bottom.
Cowards.
You can get a copy here:
http://msunderestimated.com/2008/10/07/snl-yanks-spot-on-bailout-skit-video/
Download from the bit torrent format. It’s a .wmv format so you can save it locally if you like.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.