If you’ve been following the whole “Saturday Night Live”/mortgage crisis skit kerfuffle, Kevin Williamson at the NRO Media Blog has a good summation of where things stand:

Saturday Night Live had a pretty funny skit about the mortgage-financial crisis, its origins, and the political ineptitude that enabled it. The video was put up on NBC’s website and then was yanked. The video was then put up on YouTube, and was yanked after a copyright complaint from NBC. Lots of other SNL skits are available on YouTube, including recent hit-pieces targeting Sarah Palin. But the housing crisis video, which suggested that President Bush had actually been ahead of congressional Democrats in sounding the warning, is now samizdat.

NBC spokesman Marc Liepis tells National Review only this (annoying ALL CAPS in original):

“UPON REVIEW, WE CAUGHT CERTAIN ELEMENTS IN THE SKETCH THAT DIDN’T MEET OUR STANDARDS. WE TOOK IT DOWN AND MADE SOME MINOR CHANGES AND IT WILL BE BACK ONLINE SOON.”

As of this writing, NBC has declined to say what those substandard elements are or who made the decision to remove the video. We will report back if they fill us in. Apparently the video is available on some of the other file-sharing sites, if you’re interested in taking a gander.

One question we have: what does Al Franken think about the matter? Two weeks ago he advised “SNL” on it’s Sarah Palin skit.  We’d like to know where the Minnesota Senate candidate stands on “SNL” snipping the video.