Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich was on FOX News Wednesday night, complaining about the media’s lopsided portrayal of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. He felt so strongly, that he believed Palin should sue certain outlets for slander.

“I think the elite media’s attack on Gov. Palin again and again has been factually wrong, intellectually dishonest, totally biased …” Gingrich said. “I mean, this kind of deliberate, vicious, dishonest, total distortion of who Gov. Palin is, including, by the way, the ‘Saturday Night Live’ skits, some of which I think were slander and were worthy of a lawsuit.”

That’s right, folks, Gingrich wants Palin to sue “SNL” over their impression of her. I find this pretty amusing for a few reasons and I hope you do too.

First of all, there has been a persistent questioning of the way Palin has been jabbed by shows like “SNL,” “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report.” The people who complain that their portrayal of anybody, particularly a public official, is inaccurate, biased or misleading in anyway are complete dinks. They’re comedy shows, not news programs that are supposed to practice professional journalism.

A simple way to make something funny is to either focus on small aspects of a person and magnify them or take them to the extreme. All of these shows are guilty of showing Palin, as well as other politicians, in an unflattering. But that’s comedy.

Secondly, I would have thought the speaker of the house would know that there is pretty famous legal precedent for suing someone for slander via parody. I’m sure even people with the slightest knowledge of the Supreme Court have heard of Hustler Magazine v. Falwell. The Rev. Jerry Falwell sued Hustler for publishing a fake ad that said he lost his virginity to his mother in an outhouse. Falwell sued and won, but Hustler appealed and won the appeals case in an 8-0 decision.

See, I did paid attention in J480, Mr. May.

And Palin can’t be that upset about “SNL” ‘s caricature of her, she made a special appearance on Oct. 25, after the show had aired two Palin skits.

Gingrich said he wants “SNL” to apologize for their “viciously dishonest and mean spirited skits.” He and other people who lack a sense of humor need to relax. All good comedy is going to offend someone. I mean, we can’t all be Ellen DeGeneres.