Meghan McCain stopped by MSNBC to chat with Thomas Roberts about, among other things, Game Change, the upcoming HBO movie based on a book that professes to offer a deeper look behind the scenes of the 2008 McCain / Palin campaign.

Last month, when HBO debuted the teaser trailer for their adaptation of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s best seller Game Change, it became clear why they chose to cut out about two thirds of the book and only focus on the McCain/Palin half of the campaign. Clearly they decided that they’d rather do a Frankenstein-esque story about McCain’s staffers coming to regret the choice they made in bringing a little known Governor into the limelight instead of the epic battle of wills that made up the book’s Obama vs. Clinton sections. The full trailer, released today, continues the same theme and gives us even more famous actors getting their turn to stare in horror at the “monster” they’ve created.

When HBO first announced their movie adaptation of John Heilemann and Mark Halperin’s best seller Game Change about the 2008 election, many were puzzled. The movie would apparently only follow the John McCain/Sarah Palin side of the campaign which really only made up a third of the book. Everyone could imagine what the reason was. As fascinating as the Barack Obama vs. the Clintons side was, people just love them some Palin impressions. Well, now a teaser trailer has been released and that was clearly HBO’s thinking too. The clip is edited to treat Julianne Moore’s Palin basically like the shark in Jaws.

If you didn’t think Julianne Moore could be a convincing Sarah Palin, check out the photo. Not too bad. A photo released by the producers of the upcoming HBO film Game Change shows Moore in a Palinesque outfit, with the trademark glasses and updo. The Hollywood Reporter posted the photo Wednesday, and says production on the film begins today.

While we still have no idea who’s running against Barack Obama in the 2012 election, the candidate announcements in the Hollywood 2008 election are coming in fast and furious! Just a few weeks ago, Julianne Moore was announced as Sarah Palin in the upcoming HBO film Game Change about the election and, since she looks basically nothing like Palin except in the broadest of categories, the only thing we could tell about her John McCain-playing counterpart was that he’d probably be older and probably be balding. But who could it be? Robert Duvall? Gene Hackman? Bruce Willis? Well, now we know as HBO has announced the casting of Ed Harris in the role.

While there is widespread outrage over Sarah Palin‘s misappropriation of the term “blood libel,” very little attention is being paid to the fact that her response is fixed around the lie that criticism of Palin has centered around the use of common electoral “targeting” metaphors, rather than the specific use of crosshairs, a lie that was called out last March by Gabrielle Giffords herself.

Woo-hoo! Elena Kagan is everywhere! It’s Kaganfest 2010! She’s totally debatable as a Supreme Court nominee! She knows Eliot Spitzer! She’s better for a headline than Taylor Momsen! Everybody loves the Supreme Court! That is…now. But in 2008 during the campaign, no one cared.

Turns out Game Change, the bestselling 2008 election gossip tome that introduced “Negro dialect” and “O’Biden” into our political vocabulary, was only the first volume in a presidential election series. Authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin signed a book deal today with Penguin Press, abandoning Game Change publisher HarperCollins for more than $5 million dollars to do it all over again in 2012. But if the campaigns know Heilemann and Halperin are watching, isn’t it guaranteed they’ll be less embarrassing, and thus less interesting?

Time‘s Mark Halperin has finally raised his head from the extended Game Change tour to weigh in on the current state of President Obama. In a four point summary published Sunday, Halperin lists four ways in which Obama is repeating the mistakes of George W. Bush. Andrew Sullivan is having none of it. And I mean NONE.

That’s the question poised in Clark Hoyt‘s public editor column in the New York Times this Sunday, as Game Change tops the paper’s nonfiction best-sellers list. The “racy” stories of “dysfunctional” relationships are captivaating, but led Hoyt to a question of journalistic ethics: “How do you deal with a talker of a book reported in a way that the paper’s own standards do not permit?”

It’s with some trepidation that I continue to report on the sick, sad, can’t-make-this-up story surrounding John Edwards. I never liked the guy, he’s no longer a public figure, he’ll never be a public figure, and all of this ugliness occurred when he was a private citizen, albeit one running for the most powerful position in the world. Nevertheless, I know I’m not the only one who can’t look away from this story. So here’s what’s breaking in our Tar Heel Soap Opera:

Someone over at the WSJ blog ‘Washington Wire’ apparently managed to snag an early version of former John Edwards aide Andrew Young’s upcoming tell-all ‘The Politician.’ If you’re not already entirely disgusted with Edwards these remaining tidbits should do the trick:

Gawker is reporting that John Edwards and Rielle Hunter made a sex tape that was found by Andrew Young, the one-time Edwards aide and author of The Politician, a new book whose released pushed Edwards to admit his paternity of Hunter’s daughter. But couldn’t this just be another publicity push for Young’s book? Sourced only by anonymous parties leaking info to Gawker, it all seems like too perfect of a storm. Young’s book comes out February 2nd.

When John Edwards finally admitted paternity of his daughter by mistress Rielle Hunter — in the wake of not one, but two damning books — many disappointed Democrats breathed a sigh of relief that the man’s career was dead and gone. Time, on the other hand, started crafting an article about Edwards’ comeback entitled “Rehabilitating John Edwards: Difficult but not Impossible.”

When Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann joined Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough in discussing their best-selling and oft blogged about book, Halperin mentioned that the authors are in discussions with HBO about making a film version. Their dreamcast? Meryl Streep playing Hillary Clinton and Will Smith playing Barack Obama. Mediaite’s ideal cast is after the jump!

Game Change, the dishy, exhaustively researched, and occasionally overwritten new book on the 2008 election by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, has dominated both political gossip and book publicity for the past week. It’s produced a small political scandal, a New York magazine cover story, and innumerable blog chatter. The book has been number one on Amazon since the day before its release, and the print run has reportedly already been increased twice. But it’s long — so if you’re busy, here’s the good stuff to tide you over.

Today, Mediaite Office Hours goes rogue.

Because of some tech issues our friends at Livestream are having, we’re going to go old school with a conference room mini-show. Conan, Leno, Game Change and more – at 3:30pmET.

Now that the dust has settled over the initial and headline-making revelations of the new campaign book Game Change, a number of people are beginning to question how authors John Heilemann and Mark Halperin managed to get all the frequently anonymous juicy quotes they included in the book. Did the authors, in fact, follow their own attribution guidelines?

Sarah Palin made her Fox News debut “The O’Reilly Factor,” taking questions on today’s top political news and issues. Host Bill O’Reilly was friendly and supportive, but did push Palin on the rumors of her poor intellect presented in the context of her media coverage. Nancy Pelosi, Iran, Harry Reid and of course, Barack Obama were all discussed, and as expected, Palin eloquently hit all talking points consistent with the conservative agenda. Video after the jump.

Guess who’s tired of talking about Sarah Palin and some of the stunning revelations in Game Change, the new book chronicling the 2008 presidential campaign? Why its our old pal John McCain, who you may remember as Palin’s running mate from yesteryear. While appearing on Today, McCain was pressed on allegations that the vetting process for Governor Palin was “wholly inadequate,’ which appeared to irk Sen. McCain, who exasperated “I wouldn’t know” if the vetting was appropriate.

Will Sarah Palin’s move to Fox News force her to address (nasty) revelations made in the just-released campaign book Game Change? The book’s authors think it’s possible. However, even more possible is that Palin signed on to Fox News in order to secure a safe haven while also maintaining a huge public platform.

Even though the release of Game Change has made it seem like a relic, it was only Friday when former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani stated that there had been “no domestic attacks under Bush. Robert Gibbs responded with a dose of reality, but he hadn’t had a chance to react to Rudy’s later clarification (through a spokesman). I asked Gibbs about it today, and he just seemed glad that Giuliani had cleared up the most glaring omission.

The story of Harry Reid referencing a negro dialect in describing Candidate Obama has been a promotional gold mine for the publisher’s of Game Change, the new book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann chronicling the 2008 presidential campaign. The salacious splendor of the book is sure to be a hot topic for the next week, but some of the details are giving the media fits – best evidenced by CNN’s Rick Sanchez asking guest Tony Blakely about President Obama’s alleged use of ‘jive’

What happens when a planned leak of a salacious detail (Sarah Palin couldn’t remember Biden’s name!) gets shadowed by a more salacious tidbit (Harry Reid referring to Obama’s non-negro dialect)? Viewers question your reasoning behind the piece. FNC’s Eric Shawn noticed that 60 Minutes aired an exclusive interview with Game Change authors Mark Halperin and John Heilemann last night, and Palin was effectively the focus of the piece, with no mention of the Reid comment.

Washington is still reeling today from revelations made in the uber-gossipy yet-to-be-released Game Change penned by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann. Thus far the sometimes shocking it has generated sound at bit like D.C.’s version of the behind the high school gymnasium gossip mill. And who could resist that. Answer: no one.