Sarah Palin has been increasingly vocal as the Republican process has gone on in telling Republican primary candidates to refrain from vicious attacks on each other and keep their criticism strictly on the President. On The O’Reilly Factor tonight, the former Vice Presidential candidate told Bill O’Reilly that she wanted to see the candidates stay away from vicious attacks, saying her experiences on a presidential ticket made her understand why voters appear more “disenchanted” now than ever.

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.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin responded to Mitt Romney‘s win in Florida on Fox News by criticizing his extensive spending on negative advertising in the state. “$17 million spent in one state, that purchased a lot of darts and arrows that were flown in one direction and lots of darts and arrows was thrown back. A lot of that negativity didn’t paint the party and cause in very attractive colors. I think that hurts the electorate, diminishes the energy to head into a general. Hopefully everybody will start to focus on what is important as we go forward.”

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.

Sarah Palin was fairly busy over the weekend, writing an extensive post calling out Republican “Stalinesque” “cannibalism,” reappropriating the term “Rage Against the Machine” for Newt Gingrich, and all but endorsing the former House Speaker. On tonight’s Hannity, Palin continued to abstain from an official endorsement, but demanded of Republicans a vigorous nomination process that would guarantee a win for a “big dog” that could take down President Obama.

When news broke of Hermain Cain‘s decision to endorse former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Fox News’ Judge Jeanine Pirro went right to Fox News contributor Sarah Palin for reaction. The former Alaska Governor continued to pump Newt Gingrich’s candidacy up, delivering a passionate argument that Gingrich is the best candidate to take on President Obama. It “sound(ed) like an endorsement” to Judge Jeanine, but according to Palin, it wasn’t. This pattern of Newt Gingrich nondorsements from Palin can only mean one of three things.

Last night, Herman Cain officially threw his support behind Newt Gingrich. Fox News covered the breaking news, and Sarah Palin was on to not just react to the endorsement, but to explain her Facebook post that Ronald Reagan would be “ashamed” of how Republicans are acting, and to defend Newt Gingrich against the attacks being leveled against him by Mitt Romney and other Republicans.

News cycles are so ephemeral and their stories so prolific that writing about Sarah Palin‘s Facebook notes feels like something of an anachronism in 2012. But with the former Alaska governor now taking a stand in this presidential race in defense of Newt Gingrich, her attack on the Republican establishment that made her their candidate in 2008 today brings the Tea Party back into the mix of an election from which they have appeared largely absent, at least much more than anyone could have expected after the 2010 midterms.

Last night, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin spoke with Fox Business Network’s John Stossel about how GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul “hit the nail on the head” when he warned Barack Obama to be careful when interjecting us in other countries’ business.

The final Republican debate before South Carolina had, to put it mildly, its moments. But of all the plot twists and heart-stopping verbal sniping of Thursday’s debate, it was the bold eloquence of goofily uncomfortable Peter Sellers character Rick Santorum, the long-standing (at least before Iowa) afterthought of the 2012 campaign, that stole the show in launching a few perfectly-placed stones from his slingshot at Goliath of grandiosity Newt Gingrich.

Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin lit into the media for their coverage of Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife’s claims that the former Speaker of the House asked for an “open marriage,” telling Sean Hannity on his radio show, they “overplayed their hand.”

The American public could really care less about being Joe McGinniss’d, not when there are real issues,” Palin exclaimed. “Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife is getting ready to reveal all, again — she has already done that, it seems, like a few times.”

Appearing on Fox News’ Hannity, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin endorsed Newt Gingrich — but only in South Carolina’s primary, to keep the Republican nomination race going. “If I had to vote in South Carolina, in order to keep this thing going, I’d vote for Newt and I would want this to continue,” Palin opined.

Former governor Sarah Palin has some strong words concerning the writer of Newsweek‘s most recent cover story, which asks “Why Are Obama’s Critics So Dumb?”

Appearing on Fox News’s Hannity, Sarah Palin reacted in disgust to a clip from Gayle King‘s interview with First Lady Michelle Obama, where she said Americans were “confused” about how much had been accomplished by the President. “Oh, Lord. Oh, Lord — what are we just a bunch of numbskulls out here in the heartland of America?” Palin exclaimed incredulously.

Lately, GOP leading lights Sarah Palin and former Sen. Rick Santorum have taken up the conservative pastime of hiding their anti-gay politics behind the lie that their views mirror those of President Obama. At today’s White House briefing, Metro Weekly‘s Chris Geidner and I tried to get Press Secretary Jay Carney to put some daylight between the President and Santorum on the issue of marriage equality, and while he defended President Obama’s overall record on LGBT issues, Carney was mum on marriage.

The results of the Iowa caucus are still not entirely decided yet, and as the numbers rolled in, one thing was for certain– Rep. Ron Paul would come in at a solid third place. And as Sarah Palin was asked to assess the incredible rise in support for Rick Santorum over the past week, she gave her party a warning about a different candidate: “the GOP had better not marginalize Ron Paul.”

Sarah Palin isn’t one to dally around after the holidays for much time, making her first Fox News appearance of the year– a nineteen minute doozy– on Your World two days into 2012 with host Eric Bolling, and ran the gamut of topics from every 2012 candidate to the potential of third-party candidates. She was particularly vocal in defending Donald Trump, who she insisted had a lot to offer and told his detractors “enough is enough, shut up about it.”

In the world of the microscopic news cycle, a year is a mighty long time. Think “dog years” on steroids. Over the course of the past year, in thousands (around 7,500 ) of articles and millions (between 3 and 4 million) of words, Mediaite has covered the ups and downs of that whizzing, ricocheting media world. In case you lost track in that sea of information, we’ve compiled a list of 2011 Media Winners and Losers that we hope will be the start  of a conversation, not the end of one. Here, in no particular order, are Mediaite’s 2011 Media Winners and Losers.

For those of you who thought Sarah Palin was done being a part of this presidential race, think again! When asked during a tele-town hall organized by the Faith and Freedom Coalition whether he would consider the former Alaska governor as his running mate in 2012, Newt Gingrich explained that he would definitely consider her for that position.

Despite former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s announcement in October that she wasn’t running for president, that hasn’t stopped her most fervent supporters from trying. A new radio ad put out by an “independent group” is running radio ads in Des Moines asking Iowans to “vote rogue” during the January 3rd caucus.

In what was probably the eighth or ninth iteration of the point-and-laugh-at-Fox White House Christmas card story, MSNBC host Ed Schultz managed to top them all, with an assist from a temporary co-host named Rex. Schultz set up the story by introducing the adorable animal shelter beagle, a stand-in for First Dog Bo Obama, whose presence on the White House card, and on a presidential shopping trip, prompted ridiculous criticism from the likes of Sarah Palin and Sen. John McCain.

It seems like, every day, there’s some bit of conservative ridiculousness that emerges to be lampooned by a long procession of cable news shows. Wednesday’s version was the idiotic Fox Radio feature on the White House Christmas card, and as such, I watched about seven versions of point-and-laugh at the Sarah Palin-aided bit of silliness. My favorite take, as is often the case, was Rachel Maddow’s low-key, slow burn take on the former Alaska Governor’s latest defense of Christmas from nothing.

While two years of Republican health care “Lies of the Year” had mostly alienated Politifact from conservative good favor, now those who were happy to cheer on the acknowledgement of “Death Panels” as ridiculous and the “pants on fire” status of people like Glenn Beck and Speaker John Boehner are outraged at what some are calling reputation-ending factual errors in the site’s newly-unveiled award. Yes, Politifact has turned on the Democrats and it has produced a somewhat ugly response. But blasting Politifact for lying about Democratic honesty misses a crucial point: even if the Democrats were lying about Medicare, there were many more interesting and significant lies told in 2010.

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.

The death of North Korea tyrant Kim Jong Il has elicited a variety of responses from political figures on this hemisphere. Tonight on Follow the Money, Sarah Palin weighed in on both the death of the dictator and the missile launch shortly after in North Korea, and told host Eric Bolling she saw the danger as a reminder that America must focus on being secure, which means “energy independence” and “solvency with our economy.”