Through the looking glass

A thing that struck me when Sarah Palin first came on the scene was that everyone's immediate reaction was: hey, she looks just like Tina Fey! And so from the get-go, there was this weird post-modern thing where Tina Fey--and by extension Fey-doing-Palin--was culturally prior to Palin herself. Because of this, I think that Fey's sketches lampooning Palin have had a special kind of authority to them, which has been good for Democrats.

Now, though, the whole thing is being taken a step further, because Palin has agreed to do a guest-spot on SNL a week and a half before the election. So the whole thing is sort of upsidedown--as if in the early 90s, Dana Carvey had appeared as George H.W. Bush, but on Meet the Press. Or something.