AARON SCHATZ EMAILS:

Don’t know if you watch Saturday Night Live (I doubt it) but the theme of tonight’s show seemed to be “Europeans are morons.”

The opening sketch featured the UN Security Council. After Colin Powell finishes his statements on Iraq, the German foreign minister says “and now, I think we should do nothing.” Then the French minister says “actually, I think we should all go to lunch at the most expensive restaurant in town, and make the UN pay the tab.” For the next five minutes the ministers all discuss how they can find the most expensive restaurant, take the highest number of stretch limos, and block the largest amount of New York traffic. The minister from Syria suggests they use their UN immunity to shoplift at Cartier. At the end the camera turns to Powell, who is dumbfounded.

A later sketch featured an anti-war protest. The lead protester kept trying to discuss the war while the rest of the protesters kept interrupting him by screaming out other causes, including gay rights, legalizing drugs, saving the whales, and stopping smoking. Clearly a parody of ANSWER.

Later on, they ran a parody of a European pop music program, as the two hosts traded criticisms of the United States war on Iraq with horrible banalities about pop music, including a great spot-on parody of horrible European “rappers.” Later on they went into the “audience” of kids to get video requests, each kid said how much they hated America and then requested some American video. “Yeah, I want to say to George Bush, get your troops out of Turkey… and my favorite song is Jenny From the Block!!!”

Bet nobody ever thought they would see the day when Saturday Night Live had such a clear pro-war stance.

Well, SNL at its best is about satire, and satire is about puncturing pretentious empty twaddle. And we all know who has the market on that cornered.

UPDATE: Reader Devereaux Cannon emails:

I was struck by the concept of a pacifist superpower. Can such a thing exist?

In an old Death Valley Days episode, I think titled “No Gun Behind The Badge,” Ronald Reagan played the roll of a town marshal who tried to enforce the law without using a firearm. He was, of course, shot dead by a bad guy. This strikes me as being analogous to a pacifist superpower.

Well, it worked for Andy Griffith. But the world is not just a big version of Mayberry. Or even Munich.

UPDATE: Reader Dan Hollenbaugh emails:

I watched that show a lot growing up and it’s everywhere in reruns. Sheriff Andy Taylor never carried a gun when he didn’t need one, but in a number of episodes, when it appeared that the bad guys might be capable of violence, he showed no reluctance to strap on his own .38, or grab a rifle from the rack in his office. I think that might actually make a better point about a pacifist superpower – even the supremely gentle Andy knew that there are times that call for the availability of, and willingness to use, lethal force.

Good point. I’ll bet he knows the license number of the bankrobbers’ car that Barney ticketed, too. . . .