If the people who comprise the American electorate ever doubted the power of their influence, they need look no further than this season of Saturday Night Live. They wanted Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. Done! So done, in fact, that we don't even have 30 Rock yet! Drunk with their newfound power, every "Joe the Plumber" and "That One" in the U.S. of A. went into last night's episode of SNL demanding two things: a cameo by the real-life Sarah Palin, and a battle royale between Mark Wahlberg and his livestock-friendly impersonator, Andy Samberg.Did they get it? Well, kind of! Sarah Palin did indeed cameo — across two sketches, even — though she uttered barely more than two dozen words. In the weekend update, she threw limpid hands in the air as Amy Poehler indulged in a Palin rap, and in the cold open, she interrupted (with the help of Walhberg and Alec Baldwin) a press conference by Fey-as-Palin that was made all the more ironic by the fact that Palin herself will ring in Election Day as the only major ticket candidate to never hold a press conference. Comedy or tragedy? You decide! Click to view

When Sarah Palin's teenage daughter Bristol revealed her pregnancy earlier this year, all of America played the exciting game "This Thing Is Like That Thing," remarking, "Hail fellow! This young maiden with childe recalls the heroine of the moving picture Juno. For seriousballs!" And it was good. Sadly, Sarah Palin is not Allison Janney, and according to Juno scripter Diablo Cody, Bristol is no Sunny D-swigging Juno, either:

David Letterman may be unable to follow up last night's John McCain appearance with one from his vice presidential running mate, but at least he's got the next best thing: Tina Fey! The 30 Rock actress has already taped her guest spot on tonight's Late Show, and we have this clip where she breaks down her Sarah Palin impression. So what exactly are her influences?Turns out, it's "a little bit Fargo, a little bit Reese Witherspoon in Election," with just a soupçon of her friend Paula's grandma from Joliet, Illinois. Fey downplays her frightening accuracy by claiming it's the easiest impression to do since Billy Bob Thornton mmm-hmmed his way through Sling Blade, but we have to give credit where credit is due. Now, Tina, where the hell is 30 Rock? Can't you pull some strings and get Palin to fire Ben Silverman? [CBS]

Saturday Night Live just aired its second Thursday political special, and it was a marked improvement on last week's middling debut — why, even the presidential debate skit was sort of funny! For our money, though, the extended Weekend Update was the show's crown jewel, and that segment's MVP was Kristen Wiig as the confused Republican who notoriously asserted that Obama was an Arab at a recent rally. Though hilarious enough on its own, Wiig's halting impression also reminded us of Chester from Sifl & Olly, and that's never a bad thing. The entire segment, after the jump:Click to view

As promised, John McCain finally made it to the Late Show with David Letterman tonight, and we've got CBS-supplied footage of many of the highlights. Not included: the twenty minutes of relentless McCain jokes that Letterman opened the show with to signal that this would hardly be a pushover appearance for McCain. And it wasn't!Things started to get somewhat heated just before the first commercial break, when Letterman clearly surprised McCain by meeting his Ayers reference with a question about McCain's association with Watergate criminal G. Gordon Liddy. As McCain struggled to figure out a response (eventually, he decided to embrace Liddy), Letterman pricelessly threw to commercial, leaving the candidate stranded. Also, Letterman? Not that confident in Sarah Palin's ability to lead! Peruse some of these highlights and see for yourself. [CBS]

The entire political season has been leading up to this moment: no, not November 4, but tonight's appearance of John McCain on the Late Show with David Letterman! Ever since the presidential candidate canceled his September appearance at the last minute, the McCain/Letterman War of '08 has raged on, with a celebrity army (comprised of Paris Hilton and Julia Louis-Dreyfus) ready to fall on their swords for the late-night host. Now, finally, McCain has taped a make-up appearance set to air later tonight, and details are beginning to trickle out:

The Last Time: The early numbers on Wednesday's final presidential debate between Barack Obama and John McCain put viewership around 38.3 million — squarely between their second face-off (42 million) and their first tilt last month (34 million). Viewers who watched to the very end were rewarded with the accompanying bit of McCain prankery, which had Democrats nationwide wondering when Barack Obama had become a lobbyist. [The Live Feed; photo via Wonkette]

Robert Duvall may have been one of the few Hollywood Republicans to avoid the cinematic turkey that was An American Carol, but that doesn't mean the venerable actor isn't willing to speak out about his political opinions. This week, Duvall attended a $1,500-a-head GOP fundraiser where he was tasked with introducing vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and the actor let loose with a series of left-bashing statements that would place him firmly on the elder side of the McCain/Letterman War of '08:

Lone View conservative Elisabeth Hasselbeck is typically out on a limb when her cohosts start talking politics; to expect someone else at the table to take up her pro-Palin, anti-Obama mantle is as fruitless as expecting a hug from Barbara Walters. That's what made it all the more novel today when Whoopi Goldberg agreed with Hasselbeck that Sarah Palin has been the victim of sexist attacks, then attempted to shut down additional critiques of the candidate from Joy Behar.Sure, Goldberg is The View's moderator and thus tasked with keeping the peace, but can Hasselbeck expect this unlikely ally to come to her defense in the future? At least Behar will still have some company — take a second look at her slams on Palin, and it's clear that she's picked up finger-wagging techniques from Sherri Shepherd.

Tina Fey may be locked in for a few more Sarah Palin impersonations on Saturday Night Live (though if she is, somebody had better tell her), but her cameos come with a strict stop date of November 5, at which point she will either return to 30 Rock full-time or begin a new, exciting life orbiting the rings of Saturn. Fortunately for Fey, a McCain/Palin victory is looking increasingly unlikely, but should the Republican ticket make it into the White House, SNL creator Lorne Michaels has a backup plan:

Not only is Joseph Gordon-Levitt a gifted young actor, he's also a budding filmmaker in his own right: Perhaps you recall his fine work in Pictures of Assholes, a short documentary in which he attempted to delve into the unknowable psyche of the paparazzi. His latest project, currently screening in YouTube-directed browsers everywhere, is a political memoir, tracing his roots back to his years as an impressionable young MTV watcher, through the last eight rancorous years, to his present-day love affair with a man from Honolulu. Say what you will about this Obama rhapsody: it's a gritty affair, more likely to feature repeated shots of a cow relieving itself than the flossy celebrity dance-offs favored by some of his peers. The choice is yours. It's after the jump:

Though playing Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live has given a huge boost to Tina Fey's already percolating profile, Fey herself is not so keen on the added workload. Already, she has implored the Emmy press room to help vote an end her portrayal on November 5, and now Fey is telling TV Guide that if Palin wins the vice presidency, 30 Rock will have to find brand-new ways to shoot in low-oxygen environments:

The Craigslist casting call might have assured its inevitability, but we still worked hard to suppress our awareness of Sarah Impalin', The Vice is Right or some like-titled porn romp featuring the sexual adventures of a woman suspiciously resembling Sarah Palin. Alas, America can't subsist on Tina Fey's painstaking simulacra alone, and new NSFW photos from the set confirm that the producers found their Sarah Barracuda — who shares a little more than a wink and a cup of coffee with her neighbors.Hustler's amateur outreach a few weeks back must not have yielded many takers; porn veteran Lisa Ann is featured in the new film as the Alaska governor/GOP vice-presidential hopeful, whom it appears can see Russian troops from her house. The gallery currently online at Less Clothes doesn't let on much more of the story, as it were (or if anal ever really was required, despite the producers' insistence otherwise) than that, though it does conclude with a cryptic snapshot of a large syringe packed with a milky mystery liquid that we're sure Joe Sixpack will approve multiple times when it arrives on DVD in the weeks ahead. So congrats to all involved for cranking this out so economically before the election — and without a single Taser incident! Oh, which reminds us: Don't forget to copy-edit the film's Web site before taking it live. We'd hate to think this looked rushed at all.

Doggone It: John McCain's plans to appear on Late Show with David Letterman appear to be falling through, but the bottom half of his ticket may have finally firmed up her own late-night gig. According to Cindy Adams, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin will definitely be appearing on Saturday Night Live at the end of the month. "She has already OK'd it," Adams says confidently. "She's booked. It's confirmed. Done deal. Sketches are being sketched as we speak." Adams says we can expect Palin to cameo on the Oct. 25 episode and that her rehearsal time has already been penciled in for Friday the 24th. Nor word yet on whether Tina Fey has been booked to appear, but if she's too busy, might we suggest Betty White instead? [New York Post]

As we watched David Letterman tear into John McCain with renewed vigor during last night's Late Show monologue, we couldn't help but think that this might make the rumored negotiations for McCain's reappearance a little awkward. Turns out, scheduling stipulations between the two camps had already turned contentious, as Letterman revealed when he sat down at his desk. Still, McCain's loss is Letterman's gain, because the talk show host gleefully continued to demolish McCain using some of his slyest, most cutting language yet.At this point, should McCain cut his losses and abandon renegotiations with Letterman, knowing full well he's likely to be slammed to his face if he finally put in his guest appearance? Or does he have no choice but to stop the Late Night bleeding by any means necessary? Ladies and gentlemen, the McCain/Letterman War of '08 has officially resumed after collapsed talks. Stock up on your munitions now.

Are we sick of Sarah Palin jokes yet? Yes—yes we do believe we are, yet not since Brokeback Mountain has a single cultural phenomenon offered comedy writers (and ankle-shackled galley bloggers) such a bounty of low-hanging fruit.And—much like the gay-cowboy motif into its third month of YouTube mashups—just when you think you've snorted out your last nose-chuckle at the congenial flautist's antics, along comes one more to tickle your funny places. We offer as evidence the recent (OK, fine, it ran a week ago, but we're having trouble staying up past 9 p.m. lately) appearance of Betty White on Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, in which she affected the guise of a speech writer for superannuated candidate John McCain. The money shot, of course, is her succinct assessment of his running mate—"That is one crazy bitch!"—before segueing into a lip-smacking meditation on the Democratic challenger that almost makes us wonder if the former Golden Girl hasn't been lingering in the far corners of Craigslist lately.

After weeks of massive ratings and huge buzz derived from its Tina Fey-as-Sarah Palin guest appearances, Saturday Night Live extended its political satire into special Thursday episodes beginning last night. So how did the Not Ready for Primetime Players weather the transition to the only NBC timeslot not currently bought up by Barack Obama?Answer: Awkwardly! Without Tina Fey on board or even the much-rumored Sarah Palin-as-Fey meta explosion, SNL's attempt at a presidential debate skit underwhelmed almost as much as the actual debate. Even guest appearances by Bill Murray and Chris Parnell couldn't quite mask the fact that after weeks of mining rich, varied material, SNL returned to its "beat one single joke into the ground over nine minutes" roots. In this case, it was the premise that Tom Brokaw didn't allow the debaters enough time to make interesting points. Laughing yet? Then the entire sketch awaits you below!

It was announced today that Barack Obama will be buying a half-hour of primetime television on both CBS and NBC just a few days before the November 4 election. The political infomercial reps good news for both networks (which can pre-empt low-rated shows like Gary Unmarried and Knight Rider in favor of a pre-sold half hour), but it may be even better news for the frisky Craigslister who just posted this offer:

After a remarkably sedate, breast cancer-themed episode of The View yesterday, the political fur flew once again this morning as Elisabeth Hasselbeck continued to press the last line of Republican defense: Barack Obama's tenuous tie to William Ayers. This time, Joy Behar (over the protests of a sneezing Whoopi Goldberg) tried to raise the issue of Sarah Palin's ties to an Alaska secessionist group, but Elisabeth would not be deterred — and she had a glossy trump card yet to play.

Though last night's presidential debate was mostly received as lackluster (and still couldn't outdraw the Palin/Biden vice presidential matchup), there was one bit that caught the eye of many pundits, and it's when John McCain dismissively referred to Barack Obama as "that one." Did McCain forget his opponent's name in a "senior moment," or was he letting his irritable temperament and condescension break through at an inopportune time? Whatever the reason may be, the newly energized Diddy took to his Diddy Blog to rewind the gaffe, and suffice it to say, the Bad Boy impresario is far from pleased. David Letterman, you may have a new foot soldier. [Diddy Blog]