Fey & Palin: Face-to-face on 'SNL'?

D

AVID LETTERMAN

followed up the excitement of

John McCain

's somewhat-tense guest spot Thursday (McCain stood the show up in late September, to Letterman's ire) with an appearance by McCain's running mate,

Sarah Palin

! No, wait . . .

Oops, SatTatt forgot that the campaign seems to have banned Palin from doing anything, especially talk shows, that might be fodder for "Saturday Night Live" writers. But, you ask, isn't Palin goin' on SNL this very evening?

Actually, SatTatt posits that SNL's probably the only place Palin's safe from SNL. It would be way too postmodern for SNL to parody a politician's guest spot on their own show. Postmodernism is rarely sketch-comedy gold.

The McCain campaign hasn't been forthcoming about what sketches Alaska's governor might appear in tonight, but Palin mentioned yesterday in an interview with syndicated radio host Neal Boortz that she likes the idea of playing Tina Fey.

"I just want to be there to show Americans that we will rise above the political shots that we take," said Palin.

Wait, what was SatTatt talking about? Oh, right! Letterman of course didn't actually manage to book Palin, but he got the closest thing this side of Wasilla: "30 Rock" star and Palin ringer Tina Fey, who spent a bit discussing her uncanny impersonations of the vice-presidential candidate on SNL over the last few weeks.

Fey was modest about her impression skills, which seem to have gotten as much media attention in the last few weeks as everything Joe Biden has done in the last few months put together. She said that nobody's had an easier job, accent-wise, since Billy Bob Thornton did "Sling Blade."

Fey broke Palin's accent down as "a little bit Fargo, a little bit Reese Witherspoon in 'Election' " with dashes of her friend Paula's grandmother and a love of the letter R thrown in.

Fey did seem a bit uncomfortable right after slipping into Palin's voice on request, as if realizing that she was going to be called on to chirp "I'll have to get back to ya!" for the next 10 years.

Barker leaves hospital

Four weeks to the day after surviving a plane crash, former Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker was released from a L.A. burn center yesterday. He wrote in his blog yesterday morning that he was healing fast and would be out "b4 you know it," along with a picture of his hand, covered in tattoos and nasty-looking burns, flipping off the camera (to demonstrate what he thought of life in the hospital, although he later amended that the Sherman Oaks Burn Center was in fact very nice, he just didn't like being in any hospital).

DJ AM, the only other survivor of the crash that killed the other four people aboard the plane, also appears to be getting back to normal, appearing onstage with Jay-Z this week.*

Daily News wire services contributed to this report.