Mitt Romney may have fallen short in his last presidential bid, but his book is officially a winner. No Apology: The Case for American Greatness drops on March 21 and is already topping that week's New York Times Bestseller list, continuing the trend of hit conservative nonfiction books and drawing comparisons to his potential 2012 opponent Sarah Palin. (more...)

This morning is not lacking for Sarah Palin news. From Politico: (more...)

Another day, another scandalous political book being leaked to the press. I'm going to wager that after the Going Rogue deluge, followed by the Game Change deluge, the country may not have much more attention to give to the bad behavior of our pols...particularly John Edwards. Nevertheless, here's the latest dirt on Edwards courtesy of his former aide Andrew Young, the guy who initially took responsibility for Rielle Hunter's baby. (more...)

What a difference a Christmas holiday makes! There was plenty of speculation earlier this week that President Obama would be returning to a much different Washington post the Underwear Bomber (and that was before 'Black Tuesday'!) but looks like the landscape may have changed for Sarah Palin as well, as least where books are concerned. (more...)

Haven't had your fill of books by sexy, polarizing conservative women with an inside view of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign? Never fear, 2010 is here, and it's bringing Meghan McCain's new book with it. Although it doesn't come out until August, you can pre-order it now. What can we expect from "Dirty Sexy Politics: A True Story?" Will it eclipse "Going Rogue?" Just how dirty and sexy will it get? I asked Meg to give us a tease, but she was tight-lipped about the book's contents, saying "I am very excited and can't wait for my book to be released in August. I have been working on it for the past year, and hopefully everyone will love reading it as much as I loved writing it." Fair enough. Let the speculation begin. Dirty She has volunteered, in the past, that this book will "go there," which portends more of the honest outspokenness that you get on her Twitter feed. How dirty will it get? Well, Meg warns that the title is meant to be tongue-in-cheek, but then again, this is also the girl who revealed that a date once told her she'd look great wearing a pearl necklace, so who knows? On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being "Clay Aiken" and 10 being "Dear-Penthouse-I-always-thought-these-letters-were-made-up," I'd guess Meg's book will be about a 6. Sexy While I'm sure Meghan will talk a lot about sex appeal, don't expect much in the way of hot, yet tasteful, Meg pixels. Unfortunately, some uptight jerks on Twitter ruined that for the rest of us. Still, if you're reading this, Meg, I suggest a Dixie Chicks-style cover photo. That'll show 'em! Politics This is where the rubber meets the road. I expect Meg will talk about some of the views that make her such a polarizing figure for many conservatives, like marriage equality, but also the beliefs that make her a conservative, like GUNZ! She might also revisit some high-profile feuds that she's had with the likes of Laura Ingraham, Michelle Malkin, and Paul Begala. Then, there's Sarah Palin. Expect Meg to set the record straight when it comes to the former Alaska Governor's criticisms of the McCain campaign. Finally, I think the book will probably spend some time setting the blueprint for how to grow the Republican Party, one  which conservatives will ignore. Given the volcanic heat of Palin's book, it might be a bit much to expect "Dirty Sexy Politics" to outsell it, but interest in the 2008 campaign remains high, and Meg's point of view and refreshing honesty are huge selling points. I expect it will do very well.

Talking Points Memo has got its hands on Sarah Palin's events rider for her book tour. For those of you not familiar with the term rider it is basically a list of instructions and requests (demands) sent ahead to event locales for the people in charge of organizing said event. It is also often a measure of how demanding a person can be and/or how highly they think of themselves. For example Van Halen famously demanded all the brown M&M's be removed from their dressing rooms. (more...)

Much to the delight of media folks everywhere, and the understandable dismay of the Palin family, an Alaskan judge has forced the custody battle between Bristol Palin and Levi Johnston to go public. Up until now the court case, filed by Bristol Palin back in November in order to obtain sole custody of Tripp Johnston-Palin has been closed to the public. Apparently this measure did not sit well with Levi Johnston. From the Alaska Dispatch: (more...)

“I liked what he said...I talked too in my book about the fallen nature of man and why war is necessary at times."

video Want to get a quick sense of just how much power Sarah Palin wields in the Republican party at the moment, or, alternately, how badly in need of a leader the right is? Behold John McCain on Meet the Press yesterday responding to David Gregory's question "Do you think that the -- Sarah Palin's brand of conservatism is what the Republican Party needs to regain power in the midterms and ultimately in 2012?" (more...)

A controversy involving Sarah Palin? ¡Ay Dios mío! Via Raw Story: Palin's Going Rogue book tour has gotten in hot water over guidelines distributed by the Mall of America, which ask that reporters refer to her as "governor" and mandate that "English-speaking press only" can attend. Is this a legitimate screw-up by Palin & co., or just another small kerfuffle being blown up unnecessarily by Palin's opponents? (more...)

The New Yorker may or may not be atop of Sarah Palin's reading list (one sort of assumes not) but that hasn't stopped The New Yorker from reading and reviewing Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue. This perhaps shouldn't come as such a surprise, the magazine has recently been dipping its roguish toes in coverage of the Right's most headline-making figures -- Glenn Beck made an appearance a few weeks back, as did the tea partiers. But still, it has to be a sort of triumph on the part of Sarah Palin, (sneering or otherwise, depending on how you feel about the magazine) that her influence is now such she has warranted a near 4,000 word review -- penned by Sam Tanenhaus, no less, who is moonlighting from his regular gig at the The New York Times Book Review, so a double whammy of sorts in the 'liberal media elite' category. (more...)

video Hey did you hear about Sarah Palin's book tour? Turns out that the former VP candidate and Alaskan Governor is on some sort of press tour and is trying to get in the news. During a book signing event in Columbus, Ohio, Canadian Comedian Mary Walsh ambushed Palin with camera crew and microphone to seek her thoughts on the Canadian health care system (and ostensibly embarrass her as well.) (more...)

video You will not, I think, be surprised to hear that Sarah Palin is selling a lot of books. Last week The Daily Beast reported that Palin had sold 300,000 copies of Going Rogue in the first day alone (that was last Tuesday, meaning we have officially completed one full week of Sarah Palin). (more...)

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Less than two weeks ago, it seemed perfectly valid to wonder whose media influence was greater: Mike Huckabee or Sarah Palin. Now, as all of television, print and online media finishes Going Rogue, the contest no longer seems fair. Palin has absolutely pulled away, becoming as ubiquitous (or more!) than she was during the 2008 election, in a matter of weeks. But three years is a long time. Can her popularity possibly last?

Though it seems silly to compare them today, we've all heard the fable about the hare and that pesky, consistent tortoise. Could that be Huck? Mediaite's Steve Krakauer runs down the pair's media influence below with an eye on the long view. After a tumultuous Palin-filled week, the matchup can be seen in a new light.

Two of the current top contenders for the 2012 GOP nomination are Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin, and unlike their competitors (Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, maybe Newt Gingrich) they have a secret weapon - the media.

Besides being political stars, they also have huge media platforms. But who is the bigger media star? (more...)

video Maybe Friday was an exceptionally slow news day. In fact, in a week of all Twilight, Oprah, and Going Rogue, real news did seem to cease. But does that really give Countdown -- with Lawrence O'Donnell sitting in for Olbermann -- license to forgo their headline story altogether in favor of a highlight reel replaying all of the Sarah Palin jokes from across television this week? Is no one on the Countdown writing staff funny? (more...)

Oh, how quickly they turn. At yesterday's book signing in Noblesville, Indiana, Going Rogue author Sarah Palin was faced with an angry mob of her own fans who were turned away without having their copies signed. Many of the fans, who had been given wristbands entitling them to up to 2 signed books, had waited hours in the rain for the chance to meet Palin. While you can't blame them for being angry, some of the crowd's chants were surprising. (more...)

The secret is out now. As Keith Olbermann points out, it only took Sarah Palin a year and six weeks to name 3 news sources that she reads, and at the top of her very short list sits Newsmax.com. While much has been made of the current White House's attitude toward Fox News, it makes you wonder what a Newsmax-guided Palin Presidency would be like. (more...)

video Bill O'Reilly finally got a chance to interview Sarah Palin after saying she was being kept off his show during the 2008 campaign. First order of business was figuring out why that happened. And what was revealed was Palin personally called O'Reilly at home in October 2008. (more...)

video In this new age of media, a person who was on TV for approximately 90 seconds can make such an impact that he or she can extend their brief fame far beyond just 15 minutes (Joe the Plumber turned 15 seconds into a book deal). The teenage Sarah Palin fan who Norah O'Donnell asked (or, grilled) about bailouts on Wednesday has responded in a lengthy blog after her story was picked up all over TV and the web. (more...)

President Obama sometimes doesn't have a lot of luck when it comes to timing. First there was Kanye West, followed by Joe Wilson, and now Sarah Palin going Rogue all over the President's Asia trip. Once again a major Obama initiative has been seemingly trumped by spectacle (unless, of course, you are a Time reader). Moreover on top of getting submerged under a bunch of Sarah Palin madness the White House apparently feels that the coverage they did get Stateside was 'asinine.' From today's Playbook: (more...)

It looks like Time is the first to opt off the Sarah Palin media gravy train, which may or may not mean the rest of us also get to stop talking about her in the near future. It's an interesting decision for the magazine to make -- it's not like they tend to shy away from topical or controversial covers, and Palin is a surefire conversation (newsstand) starter. However, perhaps they felt they were so thoroughly trumped in the topical, controversial, week-long headline generating department by Newsweek's cover that they opted out of the game altogether (literally: none of the feature articles address Palin). That said, this cover is sure to be a big conversation piece with the Park Slope crowd. Update: Office Hours favorite James Poniewozik has a media column about Palin that just went live: Survivor: Alaska.

One of the very first things to be noted about Sarah Palin's memoir Going Rogue was that, in very un-Beltway tradition, it did not have an index. While the move on Palin's part was obviously an intentional one -- whether to drive D.C. types crazy and force them to read the whole book, or merely further prove her status as an outsider, or both -- the result has been that a number of news outlets have stepped up to fill in the blanks, with some very humorous results. (more...)

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Sean Hannnity's pre-taped interview with Sarah Palin aired last night, and among the litany of Republican-friendly positions revealed, the former Governor of Alaska and author of Going Rogue finally told Hannity which newspapers and magazines she regularly reads. Why is this important? You'll recall her infamous hiccup in answering the same question asked by Katie Couric. What media does Palin consume? Spoiler alert: not the Huffington Post. (more...)

Readers of Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish know that, among other things, he and his team throw new material up at a blistering rate. According to Google Reader, Daily Dish averages 308 posts a week. Today, he's briefly shutting the blog down for only the second time in ten years to do something most bloggers wouldn't deign to do: read Sarah Palin's Going Rogue in its entirety. (more...)

video Jimmy Fallon found probably the most unique way yet to talk about the biggest story of the week: Sarah Palin's book. Last night on Late Night, "Going Rogue" literally went rogue. (more...)

How do you get a book of grave, intellectual critiques of Sarah Palin, printed by a recently-launched independent publisher, to get national press attention and a panel discussion on Entertainment Tonight's "The Insider?" Easy: call it Going Rouge and make the cover as much of a one-off swap as the title. (more...)

video Fox News, 9:04pmET: Sometimes a chyron misspelling is particularly glaring because it accidentally makes a separate point. And rarely the misspelling serves to reinforce the exact opposite point. Thus was the case last night on Sean Hannity's 9pmET FNC program. But besides the misspelling, there was also a serious discussion about the viability of Sarah Palin as GOP contender. (more...)

video Sarah Palin is currently involved in a heated back-and-forth with Newsweek magazine (while Runner's World ducks for cover) over their use of a sexy cover photo of her on their most recent issue. This whole thing sounded weirdly familiar to me. Newsweek magazine accused of sexist cover photo, headline calling her a problem? Sure enough, it looks like this is an annual event for Newsweek. There are a few key differences, though. (more...)

There has been no love lost between Andrew Sullivan and Sarah Palin, to put it mildly. I have noted number of times on this site that over the last year or so, Sullivan has appeared to lead the so-called Trig-birther charge, calling numerous times for Palin to produce evidence that Trig is actually her son: some people feel the circumstances surrounding his birth suggest Palin couldn't possibly have been his biological mother. This particular conspiracy theory has gained enough of a following that when I published ten questions Oprah might ask Sarah Palin (she hit on about five of them, by the way) the one that received the most attention by far was the one about Trig Palin's parentage. (more...)

video Sarah Palin will be interviewed by Oprah Winfrey, Barbara Walters, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and more this week, but one place she won't be showing up is on David Letterman's Late Show couch. But that didn't mean the late night host (who has...some history with the former governor) would stay silent about "Going Rogue." (more...)

While we wait for Sarah Palin to activate her still dormant Twitter feed, and keep our fingers crossed that Barbara Walters' interview with Palin, beginning today, is slightly more hard-hitting than Oprah's was, we'll have to rely on the old Palin standby (UPDATE: Meacham responds below): Facebook. (more...)

plea Today is the first day of the rest of Going Rogue's life, and the beginning of what is sure to be a media avalanche of fact-checking, mock-checking, charges, and counter-charges. If the media is true to form, the result will be more food for the Palin media martyr machine, and more bleed-through of silliness like the "Death Panel." (more...)

exclusive I fully understand that because I have made a documentary film about the media coverage of the 2008 election which features an exclusive interview with Sarah Palin and because I have relentlessly defended her against unprecedentedly unfair, inaccurate and dangerous media coverage, that my opinions on her book will be mostly discounted like a film endorsement made by Jay Leno or Larry King while they throw softballs to the movie’s star. After all, I have far too much real information at my disposal (like having actually spoken to her a few times) to be taken very seriously in this day and age, unless of course I had something really bad to say about Palin or her book. (more...)

live blog We've heard about it for weeks. We've seen the reactions from each side, the clips, the partial transcript. Now it's time for Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Palin to kick off the Palin media blitz in full force. We've got a live blog going for the occasion - with analysis and reaction from the Mediaite team, as well as Twitter feeds from media writers across the political spectrum (and...you). Check it out! (more...)

How to solve a problem like the coverage of Sarah Palin? According to Newsweek you take the low road. The weekly magazine, which since its relaunch has opted for increasingly blogosphere-like headlines to generate readers, apparently has decided that the best way to cover Sarah Palin's reemergence on the national stage is with an old photo from Runner's World (Palin is well known for running marathons). Wow. Were there no other photos available? Did they perhaps neglect the Google search option in their rush to be as condescending and marginalizing as possible? Maybe so. The headline, however, would suggest otherwise. (more...)

excerpt Add Drudge to the list of media outlets that has got its hands on Sarah Palin's Going Rogue. The top story on the site today links directly through an excerpt of the book, posted by Drudge, that details Palin's decision to do the now infamous Katie Couric interviews. Apparently Palin agreed to them because she felt sorry for Katie: (more...)

exclusive I have signed a nondisclosure agreement with Harper Collins regarding Sarah Palin’s new book so until it comes out I am limited to discussing only what is currently in the public domain. However, I simply must respond to the Associated Press “report” on Going Rogue. (more...)

video News about Sarah Palin's much-anticipated memoir is slowly trickling out. The AP has apparently got its hands on an early copy and can confirm some of the rumors: it was not smooth sailing between Palin and McCain's campaign staff; Palin still harbors some ill-will towards Katie Couric. But here's a new one: Palin was apparently on the receiving end of a $50,000 bill from the McCain campaign for the costs of vetting her. A disclosure which is amazing on a number of levels (I, for one, was unaware that the cost of vetting was the responsibility of the vetee) not the least of which is that is begs the question: what vetting? (more...)

video The eagle has landed! Translation: the Sarah Palin, Oprah Winfrey interview is a wrap. The much-anticipated sit-down between the talk show queen and the former VP-contender was taped yesterday in Chicago. Later in the evening Palin posted this update to her Facebook page: (more...)

We have entered the official Sarah Palin Going Rogue countdown. Come next week it is going to be all Sarah Palin, all the time, till at least Christmas. Probably more like 2012. So enjoy these last day's of relative Palin calm before the storm while you can. Or! Take an advanced look at what Palin's much-anticipated memoir contains, courtesy of Time's Mark Halperin. (more...)