So who has real political clout in the country? The Koch brothers? Apparently not. 30 Rock is the center of power, it seems.

Oh, I think the Koch boys still have considerable influence. Ms Fey's act was not so much a caricature of Governor Palin (she does that all on her own) as it was a spot on, true to life channeling of the woman. The likelihood is that a lot of those people whose minds were changed had probably ignored a lot of the mainstream media coverage given to Palin leading up to the election and after, but these same people do watch SNL and Youtube. Apparently the more you get to know Palin, the less you like her

In the Daily Beast yesterday, Kirsten Powers (a liberal columnist) observed that Bill Maher and the MSNBC males feel free to savage Sarah Palin and other GOP women with the most vile language. But Rush Limbaugh is not permitted to make similarly crude and disgusting comments about a liberal law student.

The genius of Tina Fey's portrayal was her measured approach to all things Palin. The 'You betcha' pidgin English that belonged to Little Beaver in the old Red Ryder comic strip, became a gold mine for Fey and iron pyrites for Palin. The lightness of being Sarah Palin was successful because it did not take advantage of an uninformed, under-educated personality who could not fathom her place in history. Instead, Fey held closely to the charcter, knowing that the material was there (who could invent this stuff?) and all she had to do was use her talent to give it life, all the while being careful not to screw it up or overstate the situation. The danger of comedy, badly done, it that sometimes a hero emerges rather than a clown. Because of Tina Fey (with a nod to Katie Couric) Sarah remains a clown to this day.