Oprah Bows Out Gracefully...Last Show Scheduled To Air Sept. 9, 2011

Reports: Oprah to End Talk Show in 2011


According to several reports, Oprah Winfrey will announce tomorrow that she is ending her talk show in 2011. The show, reportedly, will bow out Sept. 9, 2011, the last day of Oprah's current contract. It bears mentioning that there have been announcements and reports that the Queen of Talk would hang it up in the past; in 2002, her plan was to end the show in 2006.

Word is, however, that Oprah will say tomorrow that she is ending her syndicated show in 2011 to focus on OWN, her cable network. Assuming she means it this time, what does this mean for talk TV?

As I say, I'll believe the end of Oprah as a TV broadcaster when I see it. Oprah may be ending her syndication deal, which is rough for her syndicator, CBS TV Distribution. (The New York Times says she is not bringing her show to cable.) But if Oprah Winfrey decides at any time henceforth that she wants to have a TV show, are you going to refuse her one?

That said, it would make a certain sense for Oprah to hang it up while she's still on top. Her ratings have been declining—with syndicated TV at large—in recent years. She has shown over and over again that she's still relevant and can drive the national conversation, as when she hosted Sarah Palin this week and drew her biggest ratings in two years. But if she doesn't want to ride the declining ratings of syndicated TV to the bottom, this would be a good time to make her cable move.

That would, of course, leave an Oprah-sized hole in the daytime firmament for someone to fill: Dr. Phil, Tyra Banks, a player to be named later, etc. Oprah has so dominated daytime for the last couple decades that the daytime audience could be ready for a new star to show up.

Or stars. I'd have to doubt whether any single person can have the wide impact in so many areas that Oprah did. For starters, forget TV: the end of her book club deprives publishers and authors of their biggest outlet, a forum that can break a book nationally in one shot. (She suspended her club for a while earlier this decade, giving publishers palpitations.) She's had effects in pop culture, in spirituality, in product placement and arguably even in politics.

Oprah—if we are entering a post-Oprah era—could be another Johnny Carson or Ed Sullivan: one of the mass aggregators whose like we just won't see again. It could be that the next Oprah will be several Oprahs, specializing, spread across several shows. In the meantime, we'll have to see what she announces about her future plans: for all we know, some of those next Oprahs may just be working for her.



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Sources: TIME, Oprah.com, Harpo Studios, MSN, Wonder Wall, CNN, O Magazine, BarackObamadot.com, People.com, Academy of Achievement, Wikipedia, Jeffrey Roberts, Youtube, Google Maps

"Palin's Book Going Rogue Is Based On Fabrications,"...Says Nicolle Wallace (McCain's Camp)

Nicolle Wallace responds to Palin charges. Rachel Maddow discusses statements by former McCain campaign staffer Nicolle Wallace to The Rachel Maddow Show about Sarah Palin's new book with Ana Marie Cox of Air America Radio.

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McCain adviser: Palin’s book is fiction


Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination."

In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers.

"She probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better conceived and executed," Wallace said. "A book about that would have been painful but not entirely unfair," Wallace told an msnbc producer in an off-camera, on-the-record interview.

Wallace took particular issue with Palin's version of her Katie Couric interview, which did not cast the former vice presidential candidate in a favorable light.

Working Mom interview?

Palin described thinking the Couric interview would be lighthearted and fun. "It was supposed to be ... a working mom speaking with [another] working mom and the challenges that we have with teenage daughters," she told "The Oprah Winfrey Show" in an interview broadcast Monday.

Wallace told msnbc that this is "rationalization or justification or fiction." "We set up this interview on the day of the U.N. General Assembly, with a walk-and-talk in front of the U.N. It was never made as two working gals ... that was supposed to be to highlight her foreign policy savvy."

In her book, Palin writes that the campaign selected Couric to interview her as a favor, to give the evening anchor "a career boost."

"She just has such low self-esteem," Palin recounts Wallace as saying.

Wallace said that was also "fiction," adding, "I am not someone who throws around the word 'self-esteem.' Katie Couric was selected because we did evening anchors ... I did not advocate an interview for anyone I am friends with."

"I think she fixated on me from very early on. She hated me from the beginning," continued Wallace.

Trying to quell feud

On Sunday, NBC News reported that McCain specifically asked his former aides not to do television interviews rebutting Palin's charges and to avoid escalating the feud. In an interview with the Hill newspaper, McCain reportedly said he enjoyed reading Palin's book. "I hope she sells lots of them," McCain said.

Palin continues to make the rounds to promote her book. In an interview with Barbara Walters broadcast Tuesday, Palin says that a 2012 presidential bid is "not on my radar," but wouldn't rule out playing some role in the next presidential election.

"My ambition, if you will, my desire is to help our country in whatever role that may be, and I cannot predict what that will be, what doors will be open in the year 2012."

In her interview with Walters, Palin said she's received plenty of offers during the past few months, including to open up her family for a reality show. She has rejected that, but also said she wasn't sure whether a talk show would be best for her family.

"I'd probably rather write than talk," she told Walters.

The former Alaska governor also discussed David Letterman, whom she criticized for a sexually suggestive joke made at the expense of her teenage daughter in June. Palin told Walters she has ruled out an appearance on Letterman's late night TV show. "I don't think that I'd want to boost his ratings," she said.

Despite the internal squabbling and ultimate loss, Palin said she would go through the experience again. She "would do it again in a heartbeat," she told Walters.



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Palin's Media Blitz Could Be Her Political Waterloo...But She's No Joke!

Columnist David Brooks calls Sarah Palin "a joke".

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McCain camp bristles at Palin’s tell-all. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin lashes out at some former members of John McCain’s presidential campaign staff in her new memoir, “Going Rogue.” Now some of the staffers are firing back. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.

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Palin opens up. Sarah Palin begins her book tour with an interview with Oprah Winfrey.

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From Levi to Letterman: Palin's rough year


Despite all the money and attention former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s autobiography is expected to draw as it hits bookshelves this week, it’s difficult to think of a national political figure who’s had a rougher year than the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee.

Consider President Barack Obama with the ups and downs in his first year in office. Or Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who's facing a tough re-election bid and the difficult task of getting 60 votes to pass health care through his chamber. And don't forget the leaders of the Republican party who are out of power and have seen the GOP’s poll numbers decline.

But from the moment the 2008 campaign ended until her surprising resignation as Alaska governor in July, Palin has endured political setbacks, suffered through embarrassing revelations, became the subject of ethics complaints (most of which were dismissed), and even feuded with a late-night comedian and the father of her grandchild.

Her calendar has been full of controversial moments:

* Immediately after the presidential contest was over, McCain campaign officials told reporters about Palin committing apparent acts of insubordination, like her unprecedented (and rejected) request to deliver her own concession speech.

In March, Levi Johnston — the father of her grandchild — announced that he and Palin’s daughter, Bristol, had ended their relationship.

* In April, Palin’s spokeswoman criticized Johnston’s tell-all appearance on the “Tyra Banks Show,” saying: “We’re disappointed that Levi and his family, in a quest for fame, attention and fortune, are engaging in flat-out lies, gross exaggeration and even distortion of their relationship.”

* Also in April, the Alaska legislature voted to reject Palin’s pick for state attorney general, Wayne Anthony Ross, who had been criticized for calling gays and lesbians “degenerates.”

* In June, after comedian David Letterman made a crude joke about one of her daughters, Palin fired back calling his comments “sexually perverted,” while her husband Todd said, “Any 'jokes' about raping my 14-year-old are despicable.” Letterman later apologized.

* Also in the summer, Vanity Fair published a devastating article that recounted her troubles during and after the presidential campaign.

And after all of that, Palin shocked the world in July when she resigned from office — with some 18 months left in her first term.

“A good point guard … drives through a full-court press, protecting the ball, keeping her head up because she needs to keep her eye on the basket,” she said at her resignation announcement. “And she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can win. And that is what I'm doing.”

Palin’s political freefall

Her resignation, however, didn’t stop the embarrassments or setbacks. In August, the Alaska legislature voted to override her veto of $28.6 million in federal stimulus funds.

This fall, in that attention-grabbing special congressional election in New York, she led the charge of national Republicans endorsing the third-party conservative candidate over the more liberal GOP nominee. But that divide helped a Democrat win the seat.

And Palin’s resignation didn’t stop her political freefall, either. According to last month’s NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, only 27 percent of Americans have a positive view of her — down five points from the survey conducted just after her resignation, and down 19 points since she was selected as McCain’s running mate.

The result of all of this?

“Fewer people today see her as a serious political entity going forward,” said one Republican strategist who worked with Palin on the McCain campaign.

The battleground state book tour

But that isn’t going to stop her from selling a lot of books and attracting a lot of media attention. On Monday, she appears on Oprah Winfrey’s show to promote her book, “Going Rogue: An American Life.”

On Tuesday, the book goes on sale. And on Wednesday, she begins a book tour that will take her to 13 cities — 11 of which just happen to be in presidential battleground states (like Florida, Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia).

In fact, Palin starts her tour in Michigan, a battleground state the McCain campaign withdrew from the day of Biden-Palin vice presidential debate. Afterward, Palin went, well, rogue and openly questioned the move. “I want to get back to Michigan and I want to try," she said.

Just last week, in a posting she made on her Facebook page announcing her book tour dates, Palin quipped, “Last year, I made a promise to the good people of Michigan that I would be back, and now I’m keeping that promise.”

Can she make a political comeback?

The question is whether Palin’s book tour — and the publicity it will receive — can spark a political comeback after her rough year. If she does have her eyes on the presidency, her defenders say, next week’s rollout will be extremely important.

The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, a Palin supporter, believes that she remains a viable presidential contender. “It’s silly to claim Palin has no chance to win the nomination or the presidency,” he wrote after her resignation in July, citing her standing in early 2012 GOP primary polls and her ability to fire up the Republican base. “She’ll be able to make the case effectively that she should be the nominee, or she won't.”

In a recent e-mail exchange with NBC, Kristol added: “I’d say next month or so is very important for Palin, an unusual instance where a month three years before next election could be an inflection point regarding her chances, either positively or negatively.”

Yet other Republicans are no longer taking Palin as a serious presidential possibility. One party strategist, who requested anonymity to speak freely, says that Palin certainly appeals to the base. “In the right environment, she could be helpful to raise money.”

But the strategist argued that the “‘US Weekly’ atmosphere” surrounding her and her family makes her less viable. “It is hard to take someone that seriously with that kind of drama.”

Ditto the fact that she currently lacks an organization, the strategist said. “Making comments on Facebook is not the serious way to run for office.”

Republican political consultant Mike Murphy, who has been critical of Palin in the past, bluntly says that she won’t be the party’s nominee in 2012.

“She’ll have a muscular career as a political celebrity, and she’ll have a voice,” he said. “I just don’t think that she’s a strong political candidate.”

Murphy adds, “She is polarizing within the GOP and totally unpopular outside the party. And that is not a recipe to get into the White House.”



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Sarah "Going Rogue" Palin Is Back In Full Force!...Plans To Help Crush Democrats In 2012

Palin opens up about Couric, Johnston. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin begins her book tour with an interview with Oprah Winfrey in which she talks about Levi Johnston, the McCain campaign and her interview with Katie Couric. NBC’s Andrea Mitchell reports.

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Gone Rogue


Moderate Republicans—yes, they are not yet extinct, though most are in hiding—scoff at Sarah Palin and wish she would go away. But she's not going away. This week she's going on-air with Barbara Walters and Oprah Winfrey to flog her new book, Going Rogue: An American Life, and to promote her brand of in-your-face, power-to-the-people conservatism.

President Obama is no doubt happy to have her out there on full display. He cannot help but relish the prospect, no longer farfetched, that the Republicans will nominate Palin to oppose his reelection in 2012. A student of history, Obama could be thinking of his predecessor in presidential coolness, John F. Kennedy. In 1963 Kennedy's advisers counseled against giving Sen. Barry Goldwater national stature by posing with the GOP's conservative insurgent at a White House photo op. "What are you giving that SOB all that publicity for?" demanded White House aide Kenny O'Donnell. "Leave him alone," JFK replied. "He's mine."

Obama knows the long odds against a right-wing populist winning the presidency, no matter how good she looks in a skirt (or running clothes), brandishing a gun. He shouldn't be too cocky, however, because the death of the center is ultimately a problem for him and the whole country. If the Palinistas seize the GOP, they probably cannot take the White House. But their brand of no-prisoners partisanship sure can tie up Congress.

In modern memory, Capitol Hill has never been so polarized. With conservatives refusing to reach across the aisle, it will be hard to get even the most modest health-insurance reform through the U.S. Senate, where a 41-vote minority can block legislation. Without bipartisanship, forget about reducing the deficit or doing anything meaningful on the environment, immigration, or tax reform.

Diehard right-wing congressmen do not deserve all the blame. Obama tried to foster bipartisanship at the outset of his administration, but he didn't try very hard, and his fellow Democrats can be just as rigidly partisan on the left. Obama seems reduced to fencing with Fox News, which won't get him very far or earn him a place in the history books.

Governing effectively requires a "big tent" approach to politics. To pass the New Deal and win reelection three times, Franklin D. Roosevelt built a coalition of labor, Northern liberals, and Southern conservatives. In a body politic that swings right, swings left—but never too far without swinging back again—it is impossible to win a governing majority without a coalition of true believers and moderates.

The two greatest postwar presidents understood this. Dwight Eisenhower governed in the 1950s by deftly uniting center and right, and Ronald Reagan did the same in the 1980s. They needed to be flexible to the point of gross expediency. To placate the far right, Ike shamefully refused to stand up for his friend and fellow statesman Gen. George Marshall, who was ludicrously attacked by Sen. Joe McCarthy as "soft" on communism. Reagan piously gave lip service to the right-wing social agenda while doing nothing to further it by legislation; he also chose George H.W. Bush to be his vice president and allowed the ultrapragmatic James A. Baker III to run the White House. The "Gipper" talked tough about the Russians--while doing more than any other president to foster détente. With a slyness that belied their smiling patriotism, Eisenhower and Reagan confused and occasionally exasperated their own followers. But it's no coincidence the Eisenhower '50s and Reagan '80s were periods of unusual peace and prosperity.

Since taking office, Obama has so far failed to win the battle for the center. The post-election polls show that the country is, if anything, drifting to the right. Obama needs to win some of those drifters back if he wants to get things done. The Republican right, hellbent on preventing that, aims to crush the last scattered remnants of the old moderate GOP establishment--or any Republican who will work with the opposition. The talk-show shouters are cheering on the final purge, demanding purity.

By definition, populist movements run on a fervor that confuses honorable compromise with appeasement. Everything is reduced to us and them. This is particularly destructive when it occurs within parties. During the Reagan-Bush administration, the Bushes of Texas (but really Connecticut) were never all that comfortable with the Reagans of Hollywood. But they worked at getting along. The easier course is to rant and rail on The O'Reilly Factor. That will get you a big cable-TV audience. But it risks turning off the larger public to politics altogether. And that can't be good for the country.






Palin's Base Appeal


Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ernest Gruening: war veteran, former editor of The Nation magazine, and Franklin Roosevelt's nominee for governorship of the then-territory of Alaska in 1939. Having held that post for 14 years, he was elected to the United States Senate for the transition period of Alaskan statehood and went on to hold the seat for a decade. He is best-known to posterity as having cast one of only two Senate votes against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and also for introducing a resolution to establish a nationwide 911 emergency number.

This brief historical reflection takes care of the lazy charge, made by Matthew Continetti in his new book, The Persecution of Sarah Palin,that liberal dislike of his heroine is no more than "a distaste for those who hail from outside America's coastal metropolises; a revulsion toward people who do not aspire to adopt the norms, values, politics, and attitudes of the Eastern cultural elite." Gruening's career also illustrates the major difference between a solid résumé and a perilously emaciated one.

Sarah Palin herself can apparently never tire of contrasting her folksy provincialism with the pointy-headed intellectuals, and with those in the despised city of "Washington," where her supporters want—it would seem against her own better instincts—to move her. To hear the woman talk, you would imagine that populism was a magic formula that had never been tried before (though Continetti and his colleagues at the conservative Weekly Standard eagerly compare Palin to the raucous demagogue and onetime Klan-fan William Jennings Bryan: remember—they said it, not me).

But the problem with populism is not just that it stirs prejudice against the "big cities" where most Americans actually live, or against the academies where many of them would like to send their children. No, the difficulty with populism is that it exploits the very "people" to whose grievances it claims to give vent.

Look at the charges that surfaced against Palin during the past election, and then look at how they played out. It was alleged that she was a member or supporter of the Alaska Independence Party (AIP); that she had been an endorser of Pat Buchanan's "Reform" Party candidacy in 2000; that she was a skeptic about man-made global warming; that she thought God was on our side in Iraq; that she favored the teaching of creationism in schools; that she attended a wacko church where exorcism of witches was enthusiastically celebrated. Later fact-checking modified a number of these allegations—Continetti is on better ground here—and we can now say that Palin did no more than attend a couple of conventions of the AIP, of which her husband was a member, and send it one friendly video message while she was governor of the state in question. It further turns out that she attended that Buchanan rally, wearing a pro-Buchanan button, only because she thought it was the polite thing to do.

As for Iraq, all she meant was that she hoped God would be on our side, or we on his. On global warming she now splits the difference: it could be cyclical or it could be man-made. As for the theory of evolution, the most she really asks is that both sides of the discussion be taught. (On the witch-exorcism stuff, not even her stoutest apologists have been able to help her out: it's all on YouTube, as is the quasi-coherent speech with which she bid farewell to her governorship without a word of warning to her voters or backers.

I would urge you to scan both links and see if they don't make you feel suddenly much more elitist.)

So there it is: anti-Washington except that she thirsts for it, and close enough (and also far enough away to be "deniable") to the paranoid fringe elements who darkly suspect that our president is a Kenyan communist. If you object to Kenyans interfering in the internal affairs of these United States, you really ought to raise an eyebrow at a candidate for the governorship of Alaska who accepts anointment from "Bishop" Thomas Muthee, a weird person who claims that witch removal in his Kenyan parish led to a reduction in crime, booze, and traffic violations.

The Palin problem, then, might be that she cynically incites a crowd that she has no real intention of pleasing. If she were ever to get herself to the nation's capital, the teabaggers would be just as much on the outside as they are now, and would simply have been the instruments that helped get her elected. In my own not-all-that-humble opinion, duping the hicks is a degree or two worse than condescending to them. It's also much more dangerous, because it meanwhile involves giving a sort of respectability to ideas that were discredited when William Jennings Bryan was last on the stump. The Weekly Standard (itself not exactly a prairie-based publication) might want to think twice before flirting with popular delusions and resentments that are as impossible to satisfy as the demand for a silver standard or a ban on the teaching of Darwin, and are for that very reason hard to tamp down. Many of Palin's admirers seem to expect that, on receipt of the Republican Party nomination, she would immediately embark on a crusade against Wall Street and the banks. This notion is stupid to much the same degree that it is irresponsible.

Then there's the question of character and personality. Decades ago, Walter Dean Burnham pointed out that right-wing populists tended to fail because they projected anger and therefore also attracted it. (He was one of the few on the left to predict that the genial Ronald Reagan would win for this very reason.) Let's admit that Sarah Palin is more attractive—some might even want to say more appealing—than much of her enraged core constituency. But then all we are considering is a point of packaging and marketing, where charm is supposed to make up for what education and experience have failed thus far to supply. We are further obliged to consider the question: exactly how charming is the Joan of Arc of the New Right, who also hears voices speaking to her of "spiritual warfare"?

I admit that I have winced at some of the lurid speculations about Governor Palin's family life, and thought them unkind and tasteless even as I lapped them up. She now claims that Levi Johnston is a fabricator when he describes a wildly dysfunctional Palin household. So then: what if she's right about him? It wasn't the liberal elite media who dug up this scapegrace and nudity artist. It was the Republican nominee for the vice presidency who hauled the lad before the cameras and forced us to look at him: a fit husband for her beloved daughter and an example to errant youth in general. Once again, one is compelled to ask which would be worse: a Sarah Palin who really meant what she merely seemed to say, or a Sarah Palin who would say anything at all for a cheap burst of applause.

This is not a small matter for the Republican Party. (And again: it was senior Republican operatives, and not jeering liberals, who told my Vanity Fair colleague Todd Purdum about the hectic atmosphere, of hysteria and collapsing scenery, that accompanied their lame attempt to present Sarah Palin as plausible during the last campaign.)

The United States has to stand or fall by being the preeminent nation of science, modernity, technology, and higher education. Some of these needful phenomena, for historical reasons, will just happen to concentrate in big cities and in secular institutions and even—yes—on the dreaded East Coast. Modernity can be wrenching, as indeed can capitalism, and there will always be "out" groups who feel themselves disrespected or left behind.

The task and duty of a serious politician, as Edmund Burke emphasized so well, is to reason with such people and not to act as their megaphone or ventriloquist. Sarah Palin appears to have no testable core conviction except the belief (which none of her defenders denies that she holds, or at least has held and not yet repudiated) that the end of days and the Second Coming will occur in her lifetime.

This completes the already strong case for allowing her to pass the rest of her natural life span as a private citizen.



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Levi Johnston Rejects Palin's Thanksgiving Dinner Invite..."She's Full Of It"

Levi Johnston Turns Down Sarah Palin's Thanksgiving Dinner Invitation


Sarah Palin may have invited her daughter's babydaddy to Thanksgiving dinner, but the future Playgirl centerfold will not be passing the yams with the Palins. He turned down her offer, saying she's "full of it."

In an interview he just finished with Playgirl editor-in-chief Nicole Caldwell, Levi says of the invite, "You could tell by her laugh she was full of it." The petition to come over for some turkey was part of a segment the former Alaska governor taped for an Oprah episode that airs Monday.

Levi also that it was a "nice gesture, but she didn't mean it" and if he went, it would be "awkward." He also tells Entertainment Tonight, "Either she's telling a little spoof here or she's going to ask me in the next couple of days. I couldn't care less to go with Sarah Palin, but I want to be with my kid. It would probably be a little weird. It would be uncomfortable, but I'd go for my son's sake."

Well, between Levi's upcoming issue of the magazine and Palin's book, we think that a Thanksgiving dinner together (promptly followed by a food fight) would be just the photo op these two need to keep their prolonged dance of death going.



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McCain Camp Hits Back At Palin..."He Say, She Say"

McCain campaign fires back at Palin


Top aides to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign hit back at Sarah Palin Friday, after news reports revealed that the former vice presidential nominee’s soon-to-be-released book criticizes the campaign’s press strategy.

According to excerpts from copies obtained by media outlets, Palin charges that the staffers assigned to her by McCain’s team blocked her from speaking to the press aboard the campaign plane. And she asserts that former McCain communications aide Nicole Wallace ‘pushed’ her to do a September 2008 interview with CBS’s Katie Couric that resulted in serious damage to the former Alaska governor’s image.

“Aboard the campaign plane I was within twenty-five feet of reporters for hours on end. Headquarters’ strategy was that I should not go to the back of the aircraft and talk to the press,” Palin wrote, according to an excerpt that appeared Friday on the Drudge Report website. “At first this was subtle, but as the campaign wore on, [campaign aides] Tracey [Schmitt] or Tucker [Eskew] would call headquarters to request permission, and someone in DC would respond, ‘No! Absolutely not—block her if she tries to go back.’”

The excerpt also described Wallace as having aggressively “pushed for Katie Couric and the CBS Evening News” because “Katie really needed a career boost.”

Longtime McCain hand and former campaign manager Mark Salter disputed Palin’s account, and told POLITICO in an email that it does not line up with his memory of events.

Explaining the campaign’s decision to limit press access as Election Day drew closer, Salter said that “after we had been criticized in the press for a lack of disciplined messaging earlier in the campaign when we provided frequent and unscheduled access to the candidate, we felt it necessary to adopt the same deliberativeness and discipline employed by our opponents and rely less on impromptu press conferences with our traveling press, and more on interviews arranged in advance so our candidates would have the same opportunity our opponents enjoyed to discuss and prepare for the interview.”

Reflecting on the first set of interviews Palin did as the GOP vice presidential nominee, Salter said that the sit downs were “discussed and agreed to by senior members of the campaign staff in consultation with the candidate” and that Wallace did not choose either the journalists or the outlets Palin spoke to.

“Nicolle Wallace, along with others, was tasked with helping the Governor prepare for some of her interviews. She did not decide which interview requests the candidates would accept. Nor was she tasked with securing the candidates’ agreement,” Salter said.

“Those decisions were made by campaign management in consultation with the candidates. Campaign management and the candidates agreed to multi-segment interviews so the Governor would maintain a presence in the media while she was in debate prep,” he added. “And to the best of my knowledge, any interviews the Governor had with the individuals she referred to were approved and arranged by the campaign management with her agreement.”

Former McCain strategist John Weaver was more direct in his criticism, slamming Palin for using the book for “petty and pathetic” score-settling.

“Sarah Palin reminds me of Jimmy Stewart in the movie 'Harvey,' complete with imaginary conversations. All books like these are revisionist and self-serving, by definition,” Weaver wrote in an email to POLITICO. “But the score-settling by someone who wants to be considered a serious national player is petty and pathetic.”

“The problem wasn't who her interview was with, the problem was her interview,” he added. “Couric asked no trick questions. This just seems to be an attempt to obscure as bad a performance since Roger Mudd asked Ted Kennedy that simple question.”

Palin did not respond to a request for comment.



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Palin Oprah Interview (Preview) Videos..."Levi Is Loved"

On Thanksgiving with Levi


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On The Katie Couric Interview


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Sarah Palin promotes her new book "Going Rogue".

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Palin Oprah VIDEO: "Levi Is Loved"


On Wednesday night, Oprah tweeted out a short video previewing her upcoming, much anticipated, interview with Sarah Palin. Oprah wouldn't go into much detail, but she said that she and the former governor of Alaska talked about "everything." Today, CBS has two choice segments from their conversation, set to air Monday, November 16th.

"One final question about Levi," Oprah asks in the first clip: "will he be invited to Thanksgiving dinner?"

Palin laughs. "You know, that's a great question." It's also a question that Palin doesn't seem to want to answer. "It's lovely to think that he would ever even consider such a thing," she says. "Because, of course, you want -- he is a part of the family and you want to bring him in the fold and kind of under your wing. And he needs that, too, Oprah. I think he needs to know that he is loved and he has the most beautiful child and this can all work out for good. It really can." She then segues into a mishmash of statements on how the Palins are "not really into the drama."

Oprah presses on: "Does that mean yes he is coming or no he's not?"

In the second clip, Oprah suggests they talk about Palin's interview with Katie Couric -- a series of disastrous segments including an exchange where Couric asked Palin which newspapers she read and Palin responded: "Um, all of them, any of them." Palin tells Oprah she didn't think it was a defining moment, and neither did her campaign, though she acknowledged it was a "bad interview".



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