The AP is calling America By Heart, which will be out on November 23rd, “a tribute to American values,” with the publisher noting that it is in part inspired by the people she met during the Going Rogue book tour. Perhaps the reason for such a close release date is that unlike Going Rogue, America By Heart will not be a straightforward work by Sarah Palin (and a collaborator) but, rather, a collection of things that Sarah Palin likes. It will include “selections from classic and contemporary readings that have moved her” and “portraits of some of the extraordinary men and women she admires and who embody her deep love of country, her strong rootedness [sic] in faith, and her profound love and appreciation of family,” according to HarperCollins. It will also touch on “the nation’s founding documents, great speeches, sermons, letters, literature and poetry, biography, and even some of her favorite songs and movies.”

Just like Going Rogue, there are plans for a book tour. According to the AP, HarperCollins has yet to sort out the details, but America By Heart will have a smaller first printing than Going Rogue and sell for $25.99. The paperback version of Going Rogue, the New York Times points out, will also be released in the fall.

CNN is reporting that the success of the book in pre-orders has also been followed by crowded book signings and cross-country appearances. It’s quite a success for a potential presidential candidate who has been out of office and out of the limelight for some time, and is returning selling what very much sounds like his campaign platform in a hardcover spine, with some personal anecdotes in between.

It’s also somewhat shocking considering the lengths to which others with similar successes have had to go to promote themselves and their book. Going Rogue is one thing: its author is one of the most polarizing figures in the nation and preceded her book release with an unrelenting barrage of press coverage. Plus, her former son-in-law-to-be was helping her greatly by lying to the American people about the extent of his nudity in a Playgirl shoot (and occasionally taking jabs at the former governor). The media attention behind the release of Sarah Palin’s memoir was the perfect political storm.

Romney’s path to success is much quieter. Outside of getting punched in the face in an airplane by someone marginally related to Jersey Shore and having his CPAC speech overshadowed by a two-pronged Beck/Breitbart conservative firestorm, the Romney team has been rather quiet. He hasn’t been polling terribly great, but he’s certainly in the running, and has kept himself in the news cycle with periodic appearances without saturating the market with his product. He has also been making appearances on his book tour, campaigning with the people without actually having to admit that that’s precisely what he’s doing. And he’s become much more humorous and likable, and whether he has legitimately lightened up or his campaign team told him his lack of personality was a deal-breaker for American voters, it seems to have been working. People want to hear what he has to say. While it’s unclear whether this newfound popularity would translate into votes this year, Romney is going to have to extend his appeal anyway into 2012 if he wants to be a viable Republican candidate.

HarperCollins announced a SECOND Palin book yesterday (currently untitled) that ‘will be a celebration of American virtues and strengths. Palin will reflect on the key values-both national and spiritual-that have been such a profound part of her life and which continue to inform her vision of the future. The book will include selections from classic and contemporary readings that have inspired her, as well as portraits of some of the extraordinary men and women she admires and who embody her love of country, faith, and family. She will also draw from her personal experience to amplify these timely (and timeless) themes. … The deal was negotiated by Jonathan Burnham, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Harper, and Palin’s attorney, Robert B.Barnett of Williams & Connolly.

Robert Barnett is, of course, the ‘attorney’ who negotiates all of D.C.’s big book deals. I can’t be the only person dying to find out what the “selections from classic and contemporary readings” will include. Needless to say this sounds a lot like the Palin version of Audacity of Hope, and I suspect the publication date, when it’s eventually announced, will be just in time for the 2011 holiday season.

Someone over at the WSJ blog ‘Washington Wire’ apparently managed to snag an early version of Andrew Young’s upcoming Edwards tell-all ‘The Politician.’ Other juicy bits from the book have made their way into the media prior to this, courtesy of a leaked book proposal and an A-1 takedown at the New York Times, which noted among other things Edwards promise to Hunter that “after his wife died, he would marry her in a rooftop ceremony in New York with an appearance by the Dave Matthews Band.” To be honest, in the aftermath of Game Change revelations and Edwards’ own admission that he fathered Hunter’s child, most of these frankly seem rather tame (unless, of course, the book comes with a complimentary sex tape). Nonetheless, if you’re not already entirely disgusted with Edwards these remaining tidbits should do the trick:

• According to Young, Hunter called him in May 2007 to say she was pregnant. Young says that when he informed Edwards, the senator told him to “handle it,” to which he replied: “I can’t handle this one.” Young writes that Edward unloaded on Hunter as a “crazy slut,” said they had an “open relationship,” and put his paternity chances at “one in three.” Young says that Edwards asked him for help persuading Hunter to have an abortion. Young writes that Hunter believed the baby to be “some kind of golden child, the reincarnated spirit of a Buddhist monk who was going to help save the world.”
• [Calling MoDo] “Naturally thick and lustrous, his hair was a fixation with him. He insisted on using just one kind of shampoo — HairTec Thick & Strong Shampoo for Fine, Fragile Hair,” Young writes. He says that for years he or Edwards personally paid for the expensive haircuts rather than publicly list them as campaign expenses. He blamed the gaffe – Edward’s campaign committee picked up the tab for two $400 haircuts — on “new, inexperienced staff.”
• Keeping the affair running throughout the campaign wasn’t easy. “When I knew where the senator was staying, I made reservations in my own name, faxed copies of my credit card and state identification card, and told the hotel staff that my ‘wife’ would be checking in on my account,” Young writes. He said he paid for much of Hunter’s expenses out of his pocket, and Edwards promised reimbursement when they found wealthy campaign donors or when Elizabeth died and he no longer had to cover up such costs. “I’ll take care of you, Andrew,” he quotes Edwards as saying. “You know I’m good for it.”

You can read the rest here.

After taking the publishing world by storm with her memoir Going Rogue it may be the book industry has gone a bit sour on the Wonder from Wasilla. Michael Calderone reports that a former NBC reporter who was signed to Wiley to pen a book about Palin’s “rise to national prominence as the Republican vice presidential nominee this year, and her subsequent fall from grace,” is no longer working on the project, because there is no project:

In December 2008, Berger signed a deal with Wiley to write a book on Palin, which he tells me is no longer happening. “The marketplace changed, and we decided not to move forward with the manuscript,” Berger said.

Which is strange. Admittedly this is not the same as a publisher canceling a book by Sarah Palin, which would be even stranger. However has the publishing marketplace really changed that much where Palin is concerned? She is a known quantity, which is the sort of thing the struggling publishing industry is interested in these days. Also? The media loves her (in the sense that all publicity is good-ish publicity). Anyway, sounds to me like there is something else at work here beyond the marketplace changing, because I don’t see Sarah Palin becoming less saleable anytime soon.

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.

Anyway, you will be happy (or surprised, depending) to hear that Sarah Palin invokes no such demands in her Going Rogue rider. Beyond the banning of four bloggers (excerpt below) — Todd’s working the door when it comes to them — it’s fairly straightforward and mostly aimed at easing the experience for fans.

The four banned media folks, meanwhile, are all local Alaska bloggers who appear to have personally ticked off the Palin’s in one manner or another.

Related: Media Instructions Including ‘Banned List’ For Palin Book Event, 12/22/09 [TPM]

In an opposition to Palin’s motion for a gag order, Johnston’s attorney, Rex Butler, said: “Simply put, this matter is public in nature, the courts are not refuges for the scions of the elite to obtain private dispensation of their legal matters because the public at large has an interest in the proceedings.”

“The courts are not refuges for the scions of the elite!” Sounds a bit like Sarah Palin is getting Palinized. And then there’s this from Johnston, himself:

“I do not feel protected against Sarah Palin in a closed proceeding,” Johnston said in an affidavit accompanying Butler’s filings. “I hope that if it is open she will stay out of it. … I think a public case might go a long way in reducing Sarah Palin’s instinct to attack and allow the real parties in this litigation, Bristol and I, to work things out a lot more peacefully than we could if there is any more meddling from Sarah Palin.”

It’s unclear whether the inclusion of the press where the Palin’s are concerned will be conducive to anything getting done “more peacefully” but considering the uproar over Levi’s Playgirl photo shoot, not to mention Palin’s Going Rogue, perhaps they have a different definition of the word.

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

Former Governor of Alaska, and current best-selling author (and possible 2012 third party candidate) Sarah Palin weighs in on President Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech yesterday. Alas, not in an extended post on her Facebook page, but in a quote to USA Today whose readership is just about on par with the number of “friends” Palin’s page boasts (1.9 million and 1.1 million, respectively). Is Palin attempting to take credit for Obama’s “just war” philosophy? Perhaps just wishful thinking. The president has stated he has no plans to go rogue with Going Rogue.

A bit of a leading question, no? Particularly considering how Palin pretty much threw the McCain campaign staff to the dogs in her uber-selling memoir Going Rogue. But McCain it would seem, along with the rest of the Republican party, knows where his bread is buttered these days and has nothing but glowing remarks for Palin. (Video below)

I think that Sarah Palin is a — has earned herself a very big place in the Republican political scene. I’m proud of her. I am entertained every time I see these people attack her and attack her and attack her. She’s irrelevant, but they continue to attack her. I am so proud of her and the work that she is doing and.

[Gregory] You thought her book was fair?

Oh, sure. Yeah. I, I enjoyed her book. I — look, if 2,000…

[Gregory] She kind of felt like she was thrown under the bus by the McCain campaign at some level.

Look — oh, listen, we have a wonderful relationship, Todd and Sarah and I. Just saw her recently. And I’m, I’m very proud of her. And, and we need vigorous discussion and debate in the Republican Party. She’s going to be a big part of that discussion and debate in the future…

I think you’d be hard-pressed at this point to find anyone who thinks Sarah Palin is irrelevant. But what is perhaps most curious about McCain’s bonhomie support of Palin is whether in coming out in support of her McCain is still trying to justify his decision to appoint her his running mate or whether he is merely running scared along with the rest of the party ahead of its most powerful member. The irony of all this, of course will be if at the end of the day McCain goes down in history as the man who unleashed Palin on the political stage.

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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?

Swamp Politics‘ Mark Silva points out that the “governor” part isn’t the outrage that some blogs will inevitably spin it as being — but gets in a zinger about what “inadvertently distributed” means:

Officials at the Minnesota mega-mall this week told reporters planning to cover the Minneapolis-area stop on Palin’s Going Rogue book tour they must address the 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate who resigned as governor last summer by her old title – a common honor, actually, which normally is accorded to former governors.

But the mall also was banning foreign reporters, permtting “only English speaking press.” That’s not a common requirement.

Mall officials, calling the proposed guidelines a mistake, apologized to Palin today for “an internal miscommunication” that was “inadvertently distributed.”

In other words, it got out.

Though this may be a minor embarrassment to the Palin campaign book tour, there is an angels-dancing-on-pins quality to it all: First, it’s not as though Palin has been giving many interviews to many reporters, period. Second: book sales for Going Rogue are roaring along strong, with more than 600,000 copies sold in the book’s first week of release.

Most importantly of all, it was the Mall of America that distributed the guidelines, not Palin’s publisher HarperCollins. It’s fair to wonder if the mall came up with the guidelines on its own or did so based on the preferences of Palin’s handlers, but even if it’s the latter, it sounds like Mall of America handled things clumsily.

An outrage that no one is reporting on: to have a chance at getting your book signed by Palin when she comes to the Mall of America on the 7th, “you have to have purchased your copy of Going Rogue at Barnes & Noble.” Will no one give Books-A-Million a chance?

(via Raw Story)

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.

What does The New Yorker think of Palin’s Going Rogue ? Much like Newsweek (but without the alarming cover) they peg Palin as the modern-day successor to former conservative populists like Barry Goldwater . Unlike Newsweek, the New Yorker thinks that the very fact she is a woman may make her a populist of “historic consequence.”

Populists, from William Jennings Bryan and Huey Long through Joseph McCarthy and George Wallace, have always been divisive and polarizing. Their job is not to win national elections but to carry the torch and inspire the faithful, and this Palin seems poised to do. That she is the first woman to generate populist fervor on such a scale enhances her appeal—and makes her, potentially, a figure of historic consequence.

Didn’t necessary see that one coming did you? The magazine also notes Palin’s “iron grip” on the daily news cycle, and the “a permanent air of improvisation and experiment” that surrounds her career. Furthermore, they suggest that Barack Obama may have something to do with her popularity: “fascination with Palin owes something to the way that her cultish aura mirrors, or refracts, the aura that surrounds Barack Obama, the other political figure who comfortably inhabits the nexus of politics and celebrity” (also, “the only candidates from outside the Lower 48 ever to grace national tickets”).

But what did they think of the actual book? There’s actually precious little critiquing of the tome in the article; much like Palin has used the book’s publication to give her a renewed platform, the magazine has used it as an excuse to talk about her in a larger context. However they did have this to say:

Whenever “Going Rogue,” which Palin wrote with the help of the Christian journalist Lynn Vincent, leaves the subject of family joys (“Every child is created special, with awesome purpose and amazing potential”), the beauties of the Alaska landscape (“Autumn in Alaska shimmers in white and gold”), or the utility of prayer (“As the months went on, Todd’s prayer was answered by an offer for a permanent position with BP”) and turns to politics, it becomes a narrative of almost continual embattlement. It’s the outsider against the insiders, the innocent circled by wolves, whether in the Alaska Republican Party, in the “professional political caste” that stifled and, finally, betrayed her during the 2008 campaign, or in “the liberal media.” In almost every case, Palin’s own part in these conflicts is scrubbed free of complicating detail, lest it add darkening shadows to her pastel self-depiction.

We’ll have to keep an eye on Palin’s Facebook page to see whether the magazine warrants a reverse review.

While the event security detail prevented a meaningful interview, Palin did provide some basic comments consistent with her conservative position. While many websites are now presenting this video clip as evidence of her naivete, the video actually acquits Palin quite well, and makes the comedian look far more foolish than her target. Perhaps more stunning is that this clip has received a lot of play on numerous news sites, despite the fact it comes from a comedy show.

Some background. This Hour Has 22 Minutes, is described by many as the Canadian Daily Show. Comedian Mary Walsh plays one of the characters named “Marg Delahunty” — a strident conservative who is known (in Canada at least) for buttonholing politicians and conducting satirical interviews. As she approaches the table where Palin is signing books she yells “I just wanted to ask you if you have any words of encouragement for Canadian conservatives who have worked so hard to try to diminish the kind of socialized medicine we have up there.”

Security quickly ushers Walsh away, but not before Palin replies “Keep the faith. Because common sense conservatism can be plugged in there in Canada too. In fact, Canada needs to reform its health care system and let the private sector take over some of what the government has absorbed.”

What’s not clear about this segment is the funny. Everything about it is rather predictable, even the canned laughter throughout. What IS clear about the clip is the way that its been presented via many websites. The Huffington Post presents the clip with the headline “Palin Tricked By Comedian Again, Says Canada Should Drop Public Health Care.” Raw Story’s headline claims “Palin tells Canada to get rid of public health care.” Google News results on “Marg Delahunty” provide more examples.

Sarah Palin does have a history here. In November of last year she unwittingly took a prank call from a well-known Canadian comedian posing as French President Nicolas Sarkozy. In the infamous six-minute call, Mrs. Palin discussed politics and the dangers of hunting with Vice President Dick Cheney, all the while being clueless she was not indeed speaking with the French president.

The segment is best viewed as evidence of one’s predisposition towards Sarah Palin. If one sees her as a intellectual lightweight, you might find this to be humorous. If one sees her as the target of unfair media attacks – then this will definitely support that view.

A large chunk of that number may have come from the heartland chains such as Walmart, Target, Sam’s Club and Kroger, which Politico says have “notched 700,000 in sales in its first week, counting pre-orders.” Yowzer.

When the Beast crunched the numbers they determined that Palin would need to sell 1.6 million books in order to earn out her $7 million advance, and they thought that unlikely to happen. But one look at these numbers and you have to think, never say never. Also no word yet on Hollywood. If not a major motion picture, this is definitely some sort of miniseries waiting to happen. Anyone want to start making casting suggestions?

Below, fans in line at a Going Rogue book signing in Ohio talk about why they have come out to meet Palin. It also happens to be a somewhat fascinating look at the difference between selling books and and selling policies.

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?

Before we get to the tail of the tape, Politico talked to Huckabee this week and he contributed some trash talk (as trash-talky as a minister will get) for our forthcoming battle:

“Some of the people who had excoriated me and really been very dismissive of me for views that I had taken, and labeled me anything from a populist to an ignoramus – the same people have been very defensive [of] and laudatory to Sarah Palin,” Huckabee noted, adding that he’d invited her to appear on his weekly Fox show but “could never get any contact.”

“I’m glad she’s getting the props – I know I’m not nearly as attractive.”

He really just said that, right? Meghan McCain is not going to be happy about this.

Anyway, let’s get it on:

HUCKABEE VS. PALIN: WHO IS THE BIGGER MEDIA STAR?
TV	He has his own weekend show on Fox News, airing Saturday and Sunday in prime time, and often is the top-rated cable news show on the weekends.	She doesn’t have her own show – yet.
Radio	He has his own syndicated radio show. He’s nowhere near Rush Limbaugh levels of popularity, but it provides an extra outlet.	No radio show – yet.
Publishing	His book, “A Simple Christmas,” out last week, is currently #104 on Amazon.com	Her book, “Going Rogue,” is out now and is currently #1 on Amazon.com
Web	He’s on Twitter (45K followers), Facebook (126K supporters) and has a blog on HuckPAC.com that’s updated fairly regularly. But the Twitter and Facebook feeds are mostly an aggregation of his blog posts.	She’s on Twitter (13K followers) Facebook (974K supporters) and a sparse SarahPAC.com site. But her Facebook notes are widely read, circulated and reported about – she has yet to even tweet from her new Twitter account.
Interviews	Nothing that we can see on the horizon. Of course, he’s on Fox News at least twice a week.	She was everywhere this week: Oprah, Barbara Walters, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and more.
References	According to TV Eyes, he was mentioned 206 times in the last seven days. (Ending Nov. 11th)	She was mentioned 3,189 times in the last seven days. (Ending Nov. 11th)
Power Grid	Yes – he’s #46 on TV anchors/hosts	She’s not on the Grid (obviously the most important metric)
Other	He goes through high-profile dieting, like media star Oprah Winfrey and plays the guitar.	She kills moose, and is viewed by some (like Huckabee) as somewhat of a GILF.
CONCLUSION	He is a huge media presence, and with his own TV and radio show, he has an enormous platform to cement his place as a contender for 2012.	Sarah Barracuda is an unstoppable force, with the power to out-media even the biggest media stars. SHE WINS.

—–
» Follow Steve Krakauer on Twitter

“We take our passion for needling Sarah Palin quite seriously,” said O’Donnell.

And so in the number one story of the night, he introduced “Rogue Wave,” and proceeded to cycle through clips from the spot-on Stephen Colbert, newly unfunny Conan O’Brien, old foe David Letterman and… Craig Ferguson?  That’s who we’re going to let roast Palin after a week down the book press rabbit hole? He makes Jimmy Kimmel look like Lenny Bruce.

But to chastise Countdown‘s joke selection is nitpicking; to wonder about their choice to run the segment at all is required. If the show’s talent and writers are on Palin-overload (valid) why not just skip Going Rogue altogether on Friday’s show? That’s too easy — we’ll just run old jokes instead! Judge for yourself in the clip below:

Local news station The Indy Channel pegged the dissatisfied Palinites at “a few dozen,” while Rumproast had estimates from 100-300. The bookstore gave out 1,000 wristbands for a signing that began at 5:30, and ended around 9pm, when the store closes. It seems to me that, perhaps, the crowd’s anger was misdirected at Palin, rather than the bookstore.

Even more strange, though, is that some of the crowd, who were such huge Palin fans that they waited hours to meet her, greeted her exit with boos and shouts of “Quitter,” an obvious reference to her resignation as Alaska governor.

They also began chanting, “Sign my book!” an obvious reference to the fact that she hadn’t signed their books. For such devoted fans, they weren’t very charitable to Palin.

That said, let’s put this into context: According to IndyChannel’s “6 News,” out of 1000 fans, “900 walked away happy.” Apparently “Palin’s folks pulled the plug” on the book signing at the event’s end time — which left that rogue 100 with their Borders-issued wristband and an unsigned book. That signature was just that — a signature; according to the report: “no personal signatures or pictures with Palin were allowed. Those who didn’t get their book signed went home with only a piece of paper with Palin’s name on it.” No one apologized for the snafu, and, according to Rick Hightower of 6 News, those left out were nonplussed. Hence, it would seem, that rogue video.

The 6News video report is a nice little slice of how these events can go, if you’ve got the 2 minutes 15 seconds. It shows the good (brisk, orderly signing; perfectly-staged greeting before her shiny bus) and the bad (cranky people confused about who to blame, Palin or Borders, so just blaming whoever; news story focusing on the disgruntled 10% of the audience). It also shows her drawing power: here’s the crowd that showed up (in the rain!) to patiently await her arrival:

…Palin before her bright shiny bus, effusively thanking the crowd: “Noblesville, this was so great. You guys are hardcore patriots. Thank you so much for being here!”

…Palin’s signature on her book (no personalized messages or photos, please!):

…and an indication of the kind of buzz people are expecting here, as 6 News tries to corner the Noblesville traffic with no less than 12 related links, including a slideshow. Who says the MSM can’t adapt? Meanwhile, the liberal media’s got no reason to complain about Sarah Palin: She is, as usual, a traffic juggernaut. A rising tide lifts all boats, etc. etc.

— With Rachel Sklar

Here’s the clip of Palin giving Sean Hannity the answer to Couric’s question:

First off, I can’t understand how any interviewer can let Palin get away with the excuse that Couric’s question was somehow an insult to Alaska. By that logic, Mediaite has insulted the hometowns of dozens of media figures.

I have suspected all along that Palin second-guessed whatever answers she wanted to give, correctly assuming that no matter what she said, people were going to make hay. That’s still a weak excuse, but a believable one. The fact that her year-plus deliberation produced Newsmax as her number one answer, though, surprises even me.

I first became aware of Newsmax early in the 2008 Presidential campaign. Several of my Political Machine colleagues and I were tasked with fact-checking smears against the candidates, and I drew Hillary Clinton. The smear in question had to do with Hillary’s alleged dirty mouth, but more seriously, her alleged use of racial and religious slurs.

I traced the smear to an article that used two sources. One of them was a book that doesn’t exist. The other: Newsmax. (I note with particular pride that the article has since been updated to call me a foaming at the mouth, Clintonista asshole.) The sources Newsmax quoted were all heavily compromised in some way, so much so that no other publication ever ran the quotes.

Since then, Newsmax has done little to distinguish itself from that nonexistent book. Aside from the right-wing slant evident from a quick scan of their front page, they have also published columns that blamed Barack Obama for the Holocaust Museum shooting, advocated a (bloodless) military coup, speculated about the President’s birth certificate, and suggested poison gas (“figuratively, but in a very real way”) to remove the current occupants.

Does this mean that Palin harbors birther delusions and Obama fumigation fantasies? I doubt it, mainly because I doubt that Sarah Palin actually reads Newsmax. I read a lot of online news and blogs, including conservative sites like Redstate and Hot Air, and apart from that article I did for Political Machine, I’ve never seen Newsmax cited as a source. They simply aren’t taken seriously.

Except, of course, by a large segment of Palin’s fans, which explains why she answered as she did. A true cynic might posit that Palin, even after all this time, was still just answering off the top of her head, and replied with the name of the last conservative publication to have interviewed her that day. I give Palin more credit than that.

I think it’s much more likely that this was an appeal to the base, and probably the same answer that a lot of Republicans would have given in this situation. Newsmax is one of those things you have to say you like if you’re a Republican. It appeals to the base, but isn’t quite as loony as WorldNetDaily. Still, I think Palin would have been better served had she cited a more mainstream news source, then thrown in a few well-respected blogs like Hot Air to pull the fans.

Of course, it is possible that Palin really does head for Newsmax first thing every morning. I just think she’s smarter than that.

And what was revealed was Palin personally called O’Reilly at home in October 2008.

Here’s the exchange at the beginning of the interview:

O’Reilly: A phone call you actually made to me to my house, late October 2008, we’d been trying to get you on The Factor for months. Do you remember that?
Palin: I do, shhh, that was part of that ‘going rogue’ stuff no one was supposed to know about in the campaign.
O’Reilly: So you’re going rogue calling O’Reilly, but you basically said to me ‘I want to do the show,’ but why didn’t you?

There’s a lot of “Going Rogue” mentions during Sarah Palin Week, but this sounds legitimately rogue-like. To call a media figure for what sounded like, at the time, an off-the-record admission that she wanted to go on his show but was being vetoed, is a new wrinkle in the Palin Chronicles.

Now that she has no obligations to the McCain campaign (or, really, the state of Alaska), she’s free to go on any program she pleases. And as we suspected, this was her hardest-hitting interview during this press push. While Barbara Walters was constrained by objectivity, O’Reilly was free to be harsh and opinionated. When Palin said, as she had several times this week, that she didn’t want to voice her campaign concerns to Sen. John McCain, O’Reilly jumped in. “Wait wait wait, you were frustrated and you’re not seeing their vision, don’t you think you should have gone to the presidential candidate and said, ‘Hey, they’re mismanaging me, you’ve got to let me loose’?” he asked.

Later, the conversation turned the iconic media moment of the campaign. “Katie Couric asked you an easy question and you booted it, Governor,” O’Reilly said bluntly. “Why did you boot it? If somebody asked what do you read, I’d say New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post I can reel them off in my sleep. You couldn’t do it?”

Here’s the full interview (well, part 1 – there’s two more parts coming Friday and Monday):

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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.

During a live hit on MSNBC from a book signing line for “Going Rogue,” O’Donnell asked a girl to read her t-shirt, which was a joke about bailouts, before following up with a question. “Did you know that Sarah Palin supported the bailout?” she said, and read from her notes to get the exact language. She summed up the report saying of the supporters, “They can’t be specific in some cases about the issues, but they feel a connection.”

Depending on your point of view, what happened here was either “Badgers Teenage Girl About Sarah Palin” or “Stumps Palin Supporter“. But now, the girl who was asked the question is responding on her blog (perfectly titled “Red White and Conservative”), and “Jackie” sheds some light on how everything went down:

She told us she’d be walking up to us. You know like she just stumbled upon us. The shot began… I kept telling myself answer her question well, don’t freak out. Well, I thought she’d ask me the same question. She asked the man beside me (who by the way is NOT my dad) the same question she had before we went on air. Myself on the other hand, not the same story. She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me “Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout” to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped.

O’Donnell responded on Twitter to some “lies” out there:

Hey want to respond re lies out there … 1) Palin fan was not 13. She’d voted in 2008 2) The man was not her father ..

3) I walked the line and asked who wanted to talk on camera. They volunteered.

But Jackie disputes a key point. “Norah also claims I told her I voted (on her twitter),” she writes. “That is not true. She never asked my age or if I voted. I’m 17 I couldn’t have voted…and I don’t live in an ACORN district so I didn’t have a chance to even register illegally.” (Nice ACORN shot in there…)

No matter your political beliefs, this feels like a borderline-ambush interview. With the widely-held view of MSNBC as a liberal network (based on its prime time programming), this tone and style seeping into news coverage mirrors what many on the left claim Fox News is guilty of. This will provide more fodder to those who feel MSNBC is unfair to conservatives – and in a week where we’ve seen more Sarah Palin coverage than possibly even Barack Obama coverage last year this time, this short exchange will be part of the overall takeaway.

Here’s the MSNBC segment:

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THE WHITE HOUSE CONSIDERS THE MOTIF OF MUCH OF THE U.S. COVERAGE TO BE ASININE. A senior administration official: “American leadership was absent from this region for the last several years, despite the fact that it is increasingly central to our economic growth and our security. President Obama put our alliances on a firmer footing, reasserted our leadership in the region, and continued to advance a complicated bilateral relationship with China that will play a large role in shaping the 21st century.”

And this from David Axelrod, who apparently felt the need to point out that the trip to China was not about ticker-tape parades:

DAVID AXELROD, surrounded by White House reports after the two-question “news conference” at South Korea’s Blue House: “The goal on this trip was to lay a foundation for economic progress, to open up markets for American goods, to lay a foundation for progress on mutual security issues, … to lay groundwork on climate change. … Though the president is demonstrably popular in all these countries and polling reflects that, we didn’t come halfway across the world for ticker-tape parades. … So we believe it was a successful trip. … We didn’t have expectations that Barack Obama arrives in China or anywhere else and things change overnight.”

It’s not clear which coverage in particular the White House is upset with — Fox is not singled out — though, there does seem to be a bit of a ‘walk on water’ expectation that follows Obama wherever he goes. Perhaps instead it is just the pervading tone that Obama was too deferential to his hosts on this Asian trip as opposed to, say, merely trying to find some common ground. Considering the week we’ve had in the media, I think it’s safe to say Obama coverage hasn’t really made it ‘asinine’ quite yet.

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.

From Slate a cursory glance at Palin’s reading list derived solely from book and magazine mentions:

A Conflict of Vision, 385
Animal Farm, 27
Buck, Pearl S., 180
Bible, the, 15
Cookbooks, 15
Lewis, C.S., 27
Nash, Ogden, 15
National Geographic, 27
The Pearl, 27
Ranger Rick, 27
Reader’s Digest, 15
Seagull, Jonathan Livingston, 27
Service, Robert, 15
Sports Illustrated, 27
The Wonderful World of Oz, 16

On Katie Couric, also from Slate:

“repetitive, biased questions” of, 271
unfair editing of interview with, 273
condescension of, 276
things I could/should have said to, 274-5
things I could have done instead of talking to, 279

The Washington Post has a slightly more detailed rendition of mentions, which also includes a drop down menu! For example Palin had this to say about Bill Clinton: “Palin says she sensed in her meetings with Clinton ‘an unspoken mutual disappointment with the media’s serial unfairness to some presidential candidates in the 2008 race.’”

Some of the entries even come equipped with responses. Palin writes of her joint SNL appearance with Alec Baldwin that,

The campaign haggled with producers and writers to come up with appropriate lines for the two, deciding on something poking fun at Baldwin and his actor brother Stephen, after they turned down a line she suggested to poke fun at the actor’s claim that he would leave the country if George W. Bush was elected in 2004.

Meanwhile Baldwin’s reps say:

The reason that line was turned down was because the actor never made that claim. “‘They nixed the joke because the underlying premise just wasn’t true,’ Baldwin’s rep, Matt Hiltzik, tells EW on behalf of Baldwin. . . . ‘But once Palin knew that, after telling her [it wasn't true], she said, “Well, let’s say it anyway,” like she needed it to be true.’”

Perhaps future memoirists should consider going the Palin route: it makes for a fun media game if you have the time to play it.

Regarding the interview with Couric, Palin said “She asked about what I read, and I read…I read Newsmax and the Frontiersman and Wall Street Journal and everything online. I absorb the news via many, many sources.”

Danny Shea writes in the Huffington Post:

Newsmax is a conservative news website, while the Frontiersman is the local Wasilla, Alaska newspaper.

In one of the more memorable moments of the 2008 campaign, Palin did not name a single publication when Couric asked, “What newspapers and magazines did you regularly read before you were tapped for this to stay informed and to understand the world?”

Palin has said that she was offended by Couric’s question because it implied that Alaskans couldn’t stay informed like people in the lower 48 states.

Ed. note – this piece initially did not give proper attribution to Danny Shea at the Huffington Post. We regret the error.

From The Daily Dish:

[Palin] is a deeply disturbed person which makes this work of fiction and fact all the more challenging to read. And the fact that she is now the leader of the Republican party and a potential presidential candidate, makes this process of deconstruction an important civil responsibility. We take this seriously as we always have. We want to be fair to her, and to her family, and to the innocent people she has brought into the spotlight. And we are not reporters. We are merely analysts trying to make sense of evidence already in the public domain, evidence that points in all sorts of directions, only one of which can be true…

…And we have had the book for less than a day. We feel we owe it to you to get it right – or as right as we can – until we post or publish anything.

Palin recently called Sullivan out via Facebook for his Trig birtherism. Sullivan claims to have “simply asked” Palin to provide proof that she was really Trig’s biological mother, but he did also blog about it relentlessly for more than a year.

As Ben Smith points out, Sullivan is a hugely influential political blogger and may have had a large role in “creating the Obama narrative.” His embrace of a relatively fringy position is all the more important, then, for keeping it alive.

Sullivan’s dramatic proclamation opens him up to ridicule, and it’s highly unlikely that he’ll find a smoking gun. More likely, tomorrow he’ll turn out an AP-like fact check that picks at inaccuracies real and perceived.

Still, Sullivan and his crew deserve a little credit for pausing to actually read Going Rogue, which is something that many bloggers — and straight reporters — didn’t bother to do.

(h/t Wonkette)

Last night on Late Night, “Going Rogue” literally went rogue.

First, the book disappears from the studio, and starts walking down the hallway. With the FBI after its perp (“413 pages, 13.5 ounces, published by Harper”), “Going Rogue sneaks into Rachel Maddow‘s office on the MSNBC floor and shoots her. It jumps off the roof before the FBI can catch it. 13 hours later “Going Rogue” showed up at a hotel to find “New Moon,” lying in bed. Both removed their jackets – and then they had book sex. Really.

• Earlier: Geraldo/Stossel have a mustache fight on Late Night.

Here’s the surreal, hilarious clip (h/t HuffPost):

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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.

Going Rouge, printed by OR Books and assembled by two editors of The Nation, does not sound like a natural candidate for widespread adoration. It is a compilation of anti-Palin essays and other writings, many of which date back to last year’s election. It is a “very serious book,” editor Richard Kim told Politico, and it is “not at all intended as a joke or a parody.” Hence the cover. Essays with titles like “Palin’s Petropolitics” and reflections on Frank Murkowski‘s role in Palin’s ascent may be natural candidates for, well, The Nation; “The Insider,” not so much.

That wacky cover/title, though. There are lightning bolts coming out of the clouds, rather than sunshine! It’s a somewhat cynical form of piggyback marketing that gets a bump every time the actual Going Rogue is discussed, but given the ruthlessness of Palin’s publicity blitz, it seems like fair game. A bonus: the book has benefitted from free advertising via a number of media typos. Last night, a chyron on Hannity said that Palin was “Going Rouge.” The Canadian Broadcasting Channel went a step further, accidentally displaying the cover of Going Rouge in a segment on Palin’s book. A newspaper in South Carolina made the same mistake. (h/t Regret the Error)

It’s odd, given the waves of free publicity that Going Rouge has lapped up, that it’s not for sale on Amazon. Another Going Rogue knockoff, Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring and Activity Book, is #50 among humor books on Amazon and is currently sold out, despite the fact that it seems truly opportunistic and hacky. Sample coloring page/joke: “What animal will Sarah kill in 2012? a) Moose, b) Caribou c) Dall Sheep d) Republican Party.” LOL. Imagine how well the Going Rogue doppelgänger could do?

(The actual Going Rogue, by the way, is currently #1, and was a bestseller even before it hit stores thanks to preorders.)

Update: OR Books co-publisher Colin Robinson tells Mediaite, via e-mail: “We’re not on Amazon because we are spending very substantial amounts on promoting the book direct to readers and, as a result, can’t afford the substantial discount that Amazon requires. But the book is easily available from www.orbooks.com.”

Alas, poor Bob Silber‘s “book” Going Rouge: A Candid Look Inside The Mind Of Political Conservative Sarah Palin, which was for some reason released on November 11th instead of yesterday, is not doing as well. This may have something to do with the fact that it contains no text, just blank pages. Because it’s supposed to be like Sarah Palin’s mind.

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.

While Palin’s new book, “Going Rogue” is going bestseller, there’s another book that sounds just like it – “Going Rouge” that’s out this week as well. This one from two Nation editors aims to mock Palin instead.

Well, for several minutes during Hannity’s top-of-the-show interview with Frank Luntz, the chyron said “Palin Goes Rouge.” A few minutes later, it was corrected to “Palin Goes Rogue”…but not before the Palin haters (who probably weren’t watching Hannity anyway) got some chuckles.

Meanwhile, the interview itself was about the language used by Sarah Palin, and Luntz discussed how viable a candidate she is. You can imagine how Hannity felt. “If she decides to get in in 2012 she will be a formidable candidate, period,” he said.

Luntz wasn’t so sure, but had a theory on why her language is sometimes picked on by her detractors. “Because she is so real, she will say things that are not as effective as they could have been,” said Luntz. Interesting theory – “backassward” is just so real.

Luntz also had a different idea for how Palin could have conducted her book tour interviews:

She should have done it live. If I had been her adviser, ‘CBS, Katie Couric, ABC, NBC, come, I’ll do an interview with any of you but you’re going to come out to Indiana, you’re going to come out to Kentucky, you’re going to come out to Nebraska, you’re going to come do it live in front of the American people.’

Seeing Palin in a one-on-one live interview would mean she couldn’t say any editor made her look bad, and maybe we could all see the “real” nature of Palin Luntz describes on full display. But instead, we get all pre-taped interviews this week.

Here’s the full interview (h/t BangTheNews):

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Way back in October of 2008, Newsweek took fire from Palin supporters for a cover photo that was not sexy enough. In a segment on Fox News, a Republican media consultant picked the extreme closeup apart, pointing out wrinkles, pores, and unwanted facial hair.

While Jezebel, among others, pointed out the falseness of the assertion that Obama magazine covers were retouched to make him look flawless, the title of the cover story was a dead giveaway: The Palin Problem. It doesn’t seem likely that they picked the photo for its artistic merit.

The biggest difference then, though, was that Palin herself wasn’t doing the complaining. The McCain campaign staff that she so thoroughly derides now apparently kept her from lashing out then, and wisely so. Getting worked up over a magazine cover, especially ones as relatively innocuous as these, doesn’t bespeak the toughness demanded of a leader.

Plus, Rachel Sklar has a point. When she posed for the sexy Runner’s World spread, she and the magazine had to know they were going to sell to a wider audience than just jogging enthusiasts. This doesn’t make Palin fair game, but it raises the bar for what she gets to call “sexist.”

As for Newsweek, their respective points might have been better served in each case by using less controversial cover photos, but would have arguably been seen by far fewer people. Maybe, in the future, they should stick with (real) pictures of Palin holding guns. Everyone seems to like those.

While it was not something Oprah got around to addressing yesterday, it is something that Palin herself touches upon in her memoir Going Rogue. Via Michael Calderone at Politico:

She writes on page 238: “Formerly reputable outlets like the Atlantic ran with the loony conspiracy theory that I was not Trig’s mother—perhaps it was Bristol or Willow, they suggested.”

“Formerly reputable outlets like the Atlantic” is otherwise known as Andrew Sullivan, who has continued to beat the Palin-birther drum with sometimes questionable (I enjoy Andrew Sullivan and have for some time, but much like his Hillary Clinton coverage during early ’08, this got very old, very quickly) and entirely unapologetic relentlessness. Here’s his similarly unapologetic response to Palin’s complaint (via Politico):

“In fact, my blog never stated anything about Palin’s pregnancy and took her at her word. That’s why she decided not to sue me. She had no basis for any kind of suit. I simply asked her and the campaign to provide easily available proof that she indeed was the biological mother of Trig after her bizarre and incredible stories about her pregnancy and labor. She has failed to produce any such evidence. And she clearly never will. If she hadn’t used the baby as a central political argument in favor of voting for her, I would not have cared. But it seems to me fair to ask factual questions about a story that the candidate uses on the stump and that has aspects of it that are simply bewildering.

Of course, when Sullivan says “simply asked her,” he really means relentlessly blogged about it for twelve months on end.

I am torn on this. Yes, Sullivan has a point, she is a very public figure who has in turn made her family public figures. But I have never loved Sullivan’s coverage of women in positions of power, and at this point there are so many other things to criticize Palin on that the Trig birther conspiracy seems somehow excessive and unnecessary. Also, he is a baby, which sometimes seems to get lost in the mix.