The importance of the new television season is being blunted this fall by the nonstop entertainment coming from the 2008 presidential race.

It is hard to get worked up about “Dirty Sexy Money” or “Grey’s Anatomy” when the health of our economy and the future of our nation are being debated nightly.

One imagines that the Thursday night ratings for the vice presidential debate between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Sen. Joe Biden — in what is being billed as the TV event of the season — will be higher than they would have been if the preempted “Grey’s” had run.

Palin, the running mate of Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, has been the gift that keeps on giving to “Saturday Night Live.” Three nights ago, Palin’s interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Katie Couric was deliciously satirized on “SNL” by Tina Fey (as Palin) and Amy Poehler (as Couric).

The funniest moment came when Fey’s Palin — apparently believing she was on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” — asked for a “lifeline.” But Fey used some of Palin’s actual convoluted answers in the Couric interview to get laughs, too.

It would all be a lot funnier to many Americans if Palin didn’t actually have a good chance to be a heartbeat away from the presidency. The measure of how badly she did in the Couric interview was evident Saturday when syndicated conservative columnist Kathleen Parker suggested in a column (that ran in The Buffalo News) that Palin drop off the ticket.

Tellingly, Republican strategist Ed Rollins said on CNN Thursday that Palin has lost her confidence and added the McCain campaign has done her a disservice by keeping her away from the media except for a few interviews like the one with Couric.

Interestingly, Palin was nowhere to be found Friday night after the debate between McCain and Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee. Her absence was highlighted by the fact that Biden was in the traditional vice presidential role of making the rounds of all the networks to declare that his guy won.

Of course, it might be a lot easier for strategists and analysts who haven’t been dealing with Palin to say that the McCain campaign should let Palin be herself.

The reviews for the Palin- Couric interview were devastating even before “SNL” got a hold of it. I wouldn’t normally compare Couric to Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS newsman. But like Murrow, Couric allowed her subject to talk and generally reveal her lack of depth even on issues that Palin had previously been asked.

Couric did it without acting condescending or superior, as ABC’s Charles Gibson had been in a previous Palin interview. It was a grade A performance by Couric, who may have changed the course of history with the interview.

If there is one thing that even Democrats and Republicans have agreed upon since the interview and the McCain- Obama debate, it is that Palin couldn’t possibly have created lower expectations going into the debate. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, was the latest to join the low expectations chorus Monday in an interview on NBC’s “Today.”

Of course, post-debate analysis often can be pointless and exasperating, especially when the spin doctors of both parties declare how well their candidates have done. It is hard to see what purpose those self-serving interviews are supposed to serve beyond comedy relief.

One of the funniest moments in Friday’s post-debate analysis came from a Republican panelist who criticized Obama for repeatedly calling his opponent “John.” That’s how silly the analysis can get.

Naturally, “SNL” also had a post-debate sketch that was lost in the hoopla surrounding the Palin opening. The debate sketch served to remind viewers that it is easier to get comedy material from McCain than Obama. In the funniest moment, maverick McCain (Darrell Hammond) denied Obama’s claim that he supported President Bush’s policies.

“I have always been disloyal to this president,” said Hammond’s McCain. “[I am a] disloyal, unreliable, untrustworthy, renegade who has abandoned my party whenever it most needed me. That fact is you simply can’t count on John McCain. That’s why Nov. 4 the American people will elect me their next president.”

You can’t count on instant post-debate, unscientific viewer polls, either. Fox News had one that declared McCain the winner by an outlandish margin in Friday’s debate. I wouldn’t be surprised if MSNBC had one to declare Obama the winner by a similar margin. All those polls do is remind viewers about the perceived politics of those cable networks.

However, there were more legitimate polls done for CNN and CBS that declared Obama the winner Friday night. But even those “wins” were diminished by the fact that pollsters acknowledged that more Democrats typically watch the debates.

The only way to truly know how a nominee did in a debate is on the rare occasion when a known Republican opinion-maker acknowledges a Democrat won or a known Democratic opinion-maker acknowledges a Republican won.

Thursday night, Palin and Biden aren’t the only ones with their credibility on the line. If either nominee embarrasses themselves the way Palin did in the Couric interview, any analyst who doesn’t acknowledge that will lose his or her credibility, too.