Normally I don’t have much sympathy for politicians who are ridiculed on comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, but I did find the segments above to be in poor taste, and not very funny. The New York Post and The New York Times also report that New York Governor David Paterson has strongly objected to the manner in which his blindness was portrayed.
The most offensive segment was at the end of Weekend Update, while Amy Poehler was saying good-by on her final appearance on the show. Fred Armisen (playing Paterson) was shown wandering around in front of the camera appearing disoriented while Poehler was talking.
…Paterson and advocates for the visually impaired didn’t appreciate stock blind jokes that had Armisen pretending to be disoriented and wandering aimlessly.
“I can take a joke,” Paterson told reporters.
But he called the SNL spoof a “third-grade depiction of people and the way they look” that could lead others to believe that “disability goes hand-in-hand with an inability to run a government or business.”
The real disability displayed is the inability of Saturday Night Live to present a consistently funny show. While they have had a number of good moments during the campaign, most of which I have posted here, the jokes during most of the show have not been very funny. Resorting to making fun of the blind is a poor substitute for real comedy writing.