When the liberal entertainment media come under fire for mocking the political and religious right, they're often heard to sniff that they're equal-opportunity satirists, who "make fun of both sides." The not-so-subtle implication is that the Right is Uptight and simply doesn't know how to take a joke.

In my TV viewing this weekend, I guess I missed the balance.

Tina Fey reprised her dead-on Sarah Palin impersonation on Saturday Night Live. Sam Karnick at the Culture Project was highly critical of the the outspokenly liberal Fey's first go round, calling it excessively partisan. But it was harmless fun compared to this past Saturday's skit, which parodied Palin's recent interviews with Katie Couric. Dutifully picking up on the Obama campaign talking point of the week (just as Daryll Hammond's McCain skit, in which the GOP nominee gives his approval to campaign ads featuring comically outrageous lies,  had done the week before), Fey nastily portrayed Palin as a vapid hick, ignorant of world culture and devoid of specific political ideas (Amy Poehler, quite incredibly playing Katie Couric straight, rolled her eyes as she begged "Palin" for just one specific idea.

(Watch the skit here. )

But that's okay, because Barack Obama, whose national experience amounts to about six months of senatorial service prior to beginning his presidential campaign, is also famously open to charges of non-specificity. So surely there have been other skits mocking him for the superficiality of his "Hope -n- Change" platform? Or his oh-so-ripe-for-parody "Obamessiah" persona?

Er, no and no. But surely, then, his own VP pick's recent monumental gaffe -- Sen. Biden lectured an interviewer last week on how after the stock market fell, Franklin Roosevelt went on TV and spoke to the American people -- was even riper for the plucking. Surely we got a skit in which Biden talked about the inspiring emails that JFK sent out after the Civil War?

But no. Not even during the 12:30-1 am garbage time.

This is all in keeping with historical practice at SNL. It's magnified now because there's a race on and they need to do their part to elect their guy, but it's only a quantitative difference. Sure, they made fun of Bill Clinton, but only in portraying him as an unrepentant horn-dog that you just had to love.  The only faults that Hillary Clinton and Al Gore have ever had exposed are ambition and a slightly boring over-competence. Even Jimmy Carter was played as a cool savant whose wide range of skills included the ability to talk radio-show callers down from acid trips. But Republicans have consistently been presented as either evil or stupid.

My other viewing note: yesterday's season premiere of The Simpsons opened with a St. Patrick's Day parade that included a float labeled " Straight Catholic Priests." On the float were two elderly clerics -- and many, many empty chairs.

Yes, maybe we earned that one (although, wait a sec, wasn't the Scandal not supposed to be about homosexuality??).  Still, when does "the other side" get roasted?